What is a Workplace Experiment Sprint?

A Workplace Experiment Sprint is a short, practical development experience that moves learning directly into the workplace.

Participants identify one work practice within their reasonable influence, test one intentional change for seven days, observe the effect, and return to reflect on what they learned.

Learn → Try → Return → Adjust

The Sprint does not seek to redesign the entire team's working environment in a single session. Instead, it uses small, focused experiments to generate better information for future decisions.

About this Workplace Experiment Sprint

Managers and seniors influence digital work in ways they may not always notice.

Their everyday choices can shape:

• response-time expectations;
• communication channels;
• meeting patterns;
• interruptions;
• after-hours availability;
• focus time;
• how urgently messages are interpreted, and
• how new technologies such as AI are incorporated into work.

Digital Job Crafting for Teams invites leaders to ask:

How can I help create digital work practices that support focus, communication and quality rather than unnecessary fragmentation?

Participants identify one digital-work practice within their influence and test one small adjustment with their team or within their own leadership practice for seven days.

The detailed experiment design, facilitation questions and practical tools remain part of the live Sprint.

Why this matters

Digital overload is not always an individual time-management problem.

Sometimes it is created or reinforced through team norms.

For example:

• several channels may be used for the same purpose
• “urgent” may mean different things to different people
• rapid responses may become an unspoken expectation
• meetings may continually fragment concentration
• or leaders may unintentionally signal that people should always be available.

CA2025's Self-management outcomes recognise the challenge of interruptions, work expectations and digital communication pressures.
The proposed revised IRBA framework similarly places emphasis on learning agility, prioritisation and adapting professional work practices while protecting quality.

For managers, the question therefore moves beyond:

“How can people manage their technology better?”

toward:

“What digital working environment are we creating together?”

The foundation

The Sprint is grounded in positive psychology, workplace well-being, job crafting, leadership and work-design principles.
Key ideas include:

• Job crafting: Small, intentional changes in how work is structured or performed can influence how effectively people function.
• Work design: Performance is shaped not only by individual habits, but also by the way tasks, communication and expectations are organised.
• Autonomy and clarity: Teams benefit when people understand how and when different digital tools should be used and have reasonable scope to manage focused work.
• Attention and cognitive resources: Repeated interruption and task-switching can consume resources needed for complex professional work.
• Leader signalling: Managers shape norms through their own behaviour — sometimes unintentionally.
• Experimentation rather than prescription: Instead of imposing broad digital rules, the Sprint encourages small tests, observation and adjustment.
• Sustainable performance: The aim is to improve work functioning without simply expecting employees to absorb more demands efficiently.
• Professional capability connections

The Sprint connects particularly well with:

CA2025

• Self-management
• Adaptive Mindset and Agility
• Leadership Skills
• Digital Acumen
• Teamwork.

Proposed IRBA Revised Competency Framework 2026

• Learning Agility and Applied Curiosity
• Self-management and Work Prioritisation
• Team Leadership and Supervision
• technology-enabled professional work