How do you prioritize and decide on the most impactful solutions in a design sprint?

1 What is a design sprint?

A design sprint is a five-day process that helps you answer critical questions and solve big challenges through prototyping and testing with real users. It was developed by Google Ventures and has been used by many companies and organizations to innovate and improve their products and services. A design sprint consists of five phases: understand, sketch, decide, prototype, and test.

2 Why prioritize and decide in a design sprint?

One of the key benefits of a design sprint is that it helps you avoid wasting time and resources on solutions that don't work or don't matter. By prioritizing and deciding on the most impactful solutions, you can focus on the ones that have the highest potential to solve your problem and meet your goals. Prioritizing and deciding also helps you align your team and stakeholders on a common vision and direction, and reduce the risk of conflicts and disagreements later on.

4 How to prototype and test in a design sprint?

Once you have identified the most impactful solutions, you need to prototype and test them with real users. Prototyping and testing are the final and most important phases of a design sprint, as they allow you to validate your assumptions and learn from your users' feedback. To ensure success, you should prototype with the right level of fidelity, test with the right users, and ask the right questions. You can use tools like paper, cardboard, wireframes, mockups, or online platforms to create your prototype. When it comes to users, you can recruit them from your existing network, online platforms, or social media, or use a professional service to find them. As for questions, you should ask open-ended and unbiased questions that help you understand their needs, expectations, behaviors, and emotions. You can use tools like interviews, surveys, or usability tests to collect your data.

5 How to learn and iterate in a design sprint?

The last step of a design sprint is to learn and iterate based on your findings and feedback. This is essential to improve your solution and make it more user-centric and impactful. To do this, you need to synthesize your data and identify the key insights and patterns that emerge from your testing. You can use tools like affinity diagrams, journey maps, or personas to organize and visualize your data. Additionally, you should compare your data with your initial assumptions and hypotheses and see if they are confirmed or rejected by your testing. You can use tools like a learning board or a validation canvas to document and communicate your results. Finally, you need to decide what to do next with your solution based on your validation or invalidation. You can either move forward with your solution, pivot to a different direction, or stop and start over with a new problem or idea.