Product DevelopmentGoogle Slides
Lightning Demos Workshop
30–45 min3–10 peopleRemote · Hybrid · In-person
Boost your team's creative output and get inspired to solve your next big challenge.
What is this workshop?
Lightning Demos is a technique from the Google Design Sprint that gets teams out of their own echo chamber. Each team member does a quick tour of inspiring products, services, or approaches — not necessarily in your industry — and shares what they find compelling. The goal is to fill your team's inspiration bank before a big design or problem-solving challenge.
What's included
- 3-minute demo format guide
- Inspiration capture template
- Sticky note theme grouping section
- Idea voting board
This is for you if…
- Product or design teams preparing for a big ideation sprint
- Teams whose creative output feels repetitive or incremental
- Anyone running a Design Sprint or structured innovation session
How to access this template
- 1Enter your email in the card — we'll send you the template link right away.
- 2Open the link and go to File → Make a copy → Entire presentation.
- 3Choose a destination folder in your Google Drive and click 'OK'.
- 4Your copy is ready — rename it and start editing.
How to run this workshop
- 1Make a copy of the Google Slides deck — go to File → Make a copy → Entire presentation.
- 2Before the session, ask each team member to find one example of something that solves a similar problem — from any industry.
- 3Each person gets 3 minutes to demo their example: what it is, what it does well, and what you could steal.
- 4After each demo, team members capture their favorite ideas as sticky notes.
- 5Group the sticky notes by theme and vote on the ideas most worth exploring.
Tips for first-time facilitators
- Require examples from outside your industry. Same-industry examples produce incremental ideas.
- Enforce the 3-minute limit per demo. It's uncomfortable, but it keeps energy high.
- Have people capture sticky notes during each demo, not after all demos — memory fades fast.