Lightning Demos Workshop
Boost your team's creative output and get inspired to solve your next big challenge.
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About this template
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
Download
How to access this template
- 1
Enter your email above — we'll send you the template link right away.
- 2
Open the link and go to File → Make a copy → Entire presentation.
- 3
Choose a destination folder in your Google Drive and click 'OK'.
- 4
Your copy is ready — rename it and start editing.
Any free Google account works. You can also export to PowerPoint via File → Download → Microsoft PowerPoint (.pptx).
File → Make a copy
Open the template link and use the Google Slides menu to save a copy to your own Google Drive.
Getting started
How to run this workshop
Make a copy of the Google Slides deck — go to File → Make a copy → Entire presentation.
Before the session, ask each team member to find one example of something that solves a similar problem — from any industry.
Each person gets 3 minutes to demo their example: what it is, what it does well, and what you could steal.
After each demo, team members capture their favorite ideas as sticky notes.
Group the sticky notes by theme and vote on the ideas most worth exploring.
Tips for first-time facilitators
- 1
Require examples from outside your industry. Same-industry examples produce incremental ideas.
- 2
Enforce the 3-minute limit per demo. It's uncomfortable, but it keeps energy high.
- 3
Have people capture sticky notes during each demo, not after all demos — memory fades fast.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
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