Mar 16, 2021
Purpose Sprint — A Design Sprint for Personal Growth V1 Beta
A Sprint for inner Transformation
Finding purpose uncovers our dormant potential.
Nothing compares to the meaning we feel when we keep our most deeply held values front and center in our life, relationships, and at work. But it is oh so difficult to understand and align along your purpose.
The design sprint methodology has helped thousands of agile organisations to align goals swiftly by employing intense wellcrafted “sprints”.
A similar framework for personal development is currently missing.
Could we design a sprint to help align past, preferences, strengths & opportunities without compromising depth?
To fill the current gaps I created the “Purpose Sprint” — a comprehensive coaching framework to help you align align past, preferences & future explorations in one comprehensive journey.
The framework takes inspiration from systemic & transactional coaching methodology, modern psychology, management theory & design thinking.
Preferences were made to strike a balance between depth and brevity. Hence the name Purpose Sprint.
Stage Zero: Vision
At this stage we will set the scene and vision for the exploration
The Züricher Ressource Model helps you to develop your personal vision of exploration by employing modern neuroscientific discoveries. Think Jung’s work with the unconcious empowered by modern brain mavericks.
Task One: Complete the Ressource Model Quiz
Task Two: Note where you would like to be once we have concluded this investigation.
In session: Through Interviews, coaching and a long format exploration we will work on developing a fitting vision and symbol.
Stage One: Past
At this stage we will evaluate your past and analyze milestones & lessons learned.
The ‘Career Anchors’ Schein developed at MIT is one of the most eyeopening exercises to recognize preferences for certain areas in their job.
Edgar Schein, one of the founders of the field of modern organizational psychology, suggests that at every moment each one of us has a particular orientation towards work.
Task One: Choose 8 stages in your career that were of significance to you. Note for each step:
- What did I focus on?
- Why did I take this decision?
- What did I expect?
Task 2: Take the anchor test (here a free version)
In Session: Working through your past we will identify one anchor for each period. We will examine your test results and identify your current carreer anchor & preferences. At last, we will map your current career prefences in a pyramid of importance.
Stage Two: Preferences
This stage is dedicated to building a dashboard of your personality preferences, strenghts, unique skillset and drivers. It is also the stage where we combine those learnings with the insights gained by analysing your career anchors from your past.
No one beats you at being you. Unfortunately we rarely pause to reflect on our core interests, values, strengths & drivers.
Such an exploration pays of on many fronts: not only will it provide you with a deeper understanding where you will find most fullfillment in life. It will also make you more understanding of the different preferencess people can have.
I chose for a combination of questions by leading thinkers, psychometric tests and an assessment of one’s personal drivers to provide a fast but yet comprehensive glance at your personal preferences.
“You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, ‘How did he do it? He must be a genius!” ~ Richard Feynman
Task 1: Feymnan’s problems: According to Richard Feynman each person has around 12 problems they spend their time solving. Brainstorm and write down your 12 problems (here is a good example)
Task 2: Psychometric tests: the map is not the territory, but will provide you with perspective. Take the Big FiveTest (free one here) & the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (free one here).
Task 3: Personality drivers. This test comes from the field of transactional analysis, a field of ressource-orientated field of psychology that has brought forward some of the best coaches today. While this test design here is far from perfect — it allows for a good starting point.
In Session: This session is dedicated to aligning your unique fields of interest & expertise with your preferences & subconscious drivers.
Stage Three: Future
This stage is dedicated to creating a visual exploration board of future possibilites inspired by modern design thinking champions. It is also the stage where we will combine our learnings with a dedicated vision.
Now that you have mapped your journey and current preferences we can go on to explore paths of exploration.
The core principle for successful exploration is always “don’t jump to conclusions too fast”. By employing divergent thinking, meaning mapping opportunities before taking decisions, we will be able to spot opportunity spaces that you might have missed otherwise. Only when we have branched out (diverge) can we circle around the jewels of our findings (converge).
I call the technique we will use for this stage “Circular Visual Mapping”. I found many advantages to work this way: it is brain-friendly; it allows for infinite expansion; it moves from the macro level to infinte detail.
Task 1: Map four core areas to develop and create a circular visual map.
Task 2: Personal Vision: The Züricher Ressource Model brings together neuroscientific evidence with psychologic findings on intuitive drivers. (Complete the Test)
In Session: In this session we will use the convergence of opportunies & your personal intuitive vision to align past, preferences and future possibilities and allign them with your purpose.
Final words: the sprint is a starting point for working with an experienced coach
This framework is a starting point to help to align the most pressing answers in few sprint sessions. It is best paired with individual coaching sessions that align those inisights & help you to answer the questions that are unique to you.
While you will certainly yield better results by working with an experienced coach, the framework can also be followed by yourself. If you would like to skip working with a coach or can’t afford one, write me a direct message and I will send you detailed instructions.
