Why a sprint? The Hall, a great historical building, a charity and an organisation that gets no government funding (meaning it must make a surplus before they invest) can’t make bets on unproven ideas. The sprint explored solutions before agreeing on a small number of strategic projects.

The challenge: The Hall’s ambition is to deliver “the show around the show”. How might they ensure the experience before and after one of their stellar performances gives visitors the best they can offer?

The team: Eight participants, drawn from programming, marketing, communications, digital, archive, education and Front of House representing a cross section of the Hall’s activities, all working together on a project for the first time.

The outcome: We developed a shared vision of the new visitor experience and agreement on five themes of work to realise it. While it will act as a guiding light, it’s not a fixed vision. Instead, the Hall will learn by doing, testing initiatives at small scale and moving more quickly.

Deliverables: A map of the visitor experience, a long list of ideas about how to make it even better, a series of more detailed sketches defining how specific parts of the experience will come into being, a storyboard to help visualise the new experience and a number of objects (e.g. signs, new tickets, ways of gathering feedback) to bring aspects of the new experience to life.