The SPARCK Academy five-week introductory bootcamp has just ended and our eight brand new junior user researchers are ready to join client projects.

It’s been a whirlwind and I wanted to take a moment to reflect in the open on what’s worked well and what could be improved.

Frankly, I’d love it if your agency stole some of our ideas and learned from our experience.

Because if there’s something we all agree on it it’s that we need collectively to do our bit to help new talent find ways into design and research careers.

Opening the door

Do you know how many people applied for the eight available places on the SPARCK Academy this year? An amazing 335.

It seems funny now but before the process kicked off, I was worried we wouldn’t get enough applicants.

One key driver of inequality and exclusion is the requirement to be ‘in the know’ to find opportunities. I really wanted to avoid that and make sure the broadest range of people (a) heard about the Academy and (b) felt welcome to apply.

The secret to that bumper number was, I think, talking about the Academy as often and as loudly as possible.

In practice, that meant elbowing my way onto the SPARCK LinkedIn page, writing blog posts, and encouraged my colleagues to share through their own channels.

It’s easy to think of marketing as fluff or noise but, actually, it’s how you send signals so the right people can hear them.

Going through all those CVs took weeks but it meant that we could be sure our new colleagues were going to be brilliant, and ready to hit the ground running.

Designing a great bootcamp

We knew we’d chosen great people and, honestly, we could probably put them on projects on day one and they’d have dealt with it.

But we don’t want people to just ‘cope’ – we want the Academy to create designers and researchers with depth and breadth of knowledge and experience, who feel confident and supported.

Despite the tough name, the bootcamp isn’t Full Metal Jacket – it’s a safe space to experiment, learn and grow.

Having run retrospectives on previous rounds of the Academy process, we knew there were a few things we wanted to tweak.

First, we were determined to bring people from SPARCK (design and research) and BJSS (engineering and technology) together as soon as we could.

Most of our projects have blended teams from SPARCK and BJSS, and they do consistently brilliant work together. But there’s almost always a slight learning curve as people from both streams get their heads round how the other side works.

With that in mind, the first bootcamp activity was a series of hackathons with Academy members from both sides of the business, so everyone could do this key bit of learning before they join a project team.

“The best moment of the bootcamp was getting to work with the engineers,” says Kalista Gilfillian. “It was a great experience, getting to show them what SPARCK does, and learning from them. There’s such a supportive, friendly culture at BJSS. It’s a great space for growth and learning.”

Becoming T-shaped

The 2023 SPARCK Academy was dedicated to user research.

The Academy members been having dedicated training on user research with Abdrur Rahman, our research practice lead, and other experts from the Research practice.

They’ve been covering topics such as research ethics, accessibility, usability testing and interview techniques.

At the same time, we wanted to make sure they really understood each of the other disciplines within SPARCK:

  • Content design.
  • Product design.
  • Service design.
  • Strategy and innovation.

That’s not only so they can work more effectively together but also to help Academy members think about their own future careers.

People at SPARCK often move between practices, keeping themselves sharp and engaged. And we have a bunch of people who are truly multi-disciplined, able to work in a number of different roles as projects demand.

The Academy spent chunks of time with experienced designers from each of the communities of practice, getting hands-on with aspects of design that were perhaps new to them, or out of their comfort zones.

So, for example, Helio Costa, Head of the Product Design Practice, had them learning about layout, colour theory, accessibility, and sustainability. They even designed their own Wes Anderson-style posters, as a warmup, to start learning about design software.

And Emma Baker, our Head of Content Design, taught them all about what it means to follow a content-first approach.

“The best moment of the bootcamp and what surprised me was the content design day,” says Katie Poole. “Prior to the bootcamp I didn’t think I’d enjoy content design as much as I did. I loved learning about how much thought goes into content and since this session I have definitely adopted a content-first approach.”

“While learning about different design practices I’ve been able to get a wider view of how my career as a T-shaped researcher could go,” says Kai Green. “Areas that I didn’t expect to be intrigued by have often surprised and inspired me the most.”

Jamie Stanley says he was surprised to learn just how many teams have to work together to deliver projects: “I’d heard about it but I didn’t understand how it would work in practice. The Academy helped us all think about the bigger picture when it comes to strategy and service design.”

Sprint to the finish

The final piece of training, in week four, was a full design sprint, just like on a real client project.

The Academy members were given the task of redesigning the donations portal for a charity, with a particular focus on turning user research insights into actionable recommendations.

It was great to see them popping up on Slack asking for help and getting expert contributions, as if they’ve been at SPARCK for months.

Emma Baker was delighted to hear them talking about the need to get content designers involved early on in the process.

“I’ve really enjoyed our design sprint,” says Katy de la Motte-Harrison. “It’s definitely been hard work but it’s been so nice to work closely with a team on a common goal and apply all our knowledge from the previous weeks. I’ve found it really rewarding and it’s made me excited to start on a real project.”

“The opportunity to put everything we have learnt into practice in a safe space has made me even more eager to join a project,” says Chloe Wybrant.

“What surprised me the most was how much we need to embrace ambiguity,” says Haleemah Ayoub. “We’re not going to have the answers all the time, but that’s OK – we’ll figure it out!”

Fixes for the 2024 Academy

Honestly, I’m pretty delighted with how this round of the Academy went.

We’ve definitely learned from previous years in terms of designing hands-on activities and finding opportunities for cross-SPARCK collaboration.

One tweak I’ll probably make, though, is to bring BJSS back into the mix for the design sprint at the end of the bootcamp.

They all found working with engineers on the hackathons so inspiring that I’d like to keep that thread through the whole process.

What next?

A sign that it’s worked well is that half of our Academy intake is already lined up for client projects starting in the next week or so.

In previous years it’s taken a little longer to place people, because we’re asking clients to take a chance on someone with relatively less experience, on paper.

But the Academy programme as it’s now designed is helping us overcome those objections and say, these are talented people who, when working alongside experienced designers and researchers, will give your project a real boost.

The SPARCK Academy will return in...

Actually, we don’t have a date just yet but fingers crossed for 2024.

Connect with me on LinkedIn and follow SPARCK to be the first to hear when the next round opens for applications.

Written by Rebecca Laycock - Senior User Research Consultant, Service Designer and Digital Consultant, Leeds