Lessons from the design journey - The MVP & Design Sprint connect

I have been thinking so much about the whole concept of mvp, design thinking, design sprints - especially since we did a session for a Webinar here at work. While the session was fun, a great experience of shared information, an insight into concepts, it also got me all motivated to share my learning in a capsule here. Ever wondered about why the MVP is such a talked about concept and where the Design Sprint fits in? Here’s my two cents of wisdom and experience.?

In a world full of trials, errors, and assumptions, a business strategizes its product development process for optimal success.?

Naturally, the next step is to find the errors fast and minimize the errors & risks involved. The best or the most preferred approach is to follow the agile methodology. Or the lean startup methodology - “fail fast, to learn faster,” as Eric Reis pointed out.?

In this process, the minimum viable product (MVP) helps a business utilize resources optimally, incorporate essential & required features and satisfy its customer base.?

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) has just enough features to satisfy early customers. An MVP is strategy companies use to test the viability of their products and services. It is a product built with the minimum set of features necessary to satisfy early adopters and provide feedback for future product development.

Reis gave the world this definition:

A Minimum Viable Product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.

— Eric Ries

The thing to remember here is it isn’t just about understanding ‘how do we build a product’ - it has to be about ‘should we build it.’ The latter calls for understanding the market well and the build-test-evaluate-repeat process.?

Design is an essentialt part of an MVP. Design can help us achieve the goals of the product and make it more user-friendly. It isvitalt to have a good design to communicate efficiently with our target audience.

Designers work on different aspects of the product like Pre-sprint research, Problem Mapping, Decision Making, Building prototypes and testing them with users to create a cohesive solution for the product.

The process of building an MVP can be broken down into different steps and sub-stepss for more clarity in the design sprint, but the key objective and steps are below:

1) Validate the problem,

2) Identify potential solutions,

3) Build and validate the solution.

The Design Sprint aims to validate, prototype and test ideas via design in a short time.?

As a designer, it is enriching and a learning experience to work on the MVP using the Design Sprint. As in the process of Design Thinking, the? design sprint works on the cycle of:

• Empathy
• Defining
• Ideation
• Prototype
• Testing

Simply stated??

1. You use empathy and a human centric approach, bridge the gap between user needs and product design
2. Then use your observations to define the problem
3. Ideate to check if you have the right requirements
4. Get a small scale version ready to check what works
5. Make the product go through a series of changes, edits and refinements. Now, this could either give you your final answer to the product version needed or get you into more iterations.?

Either way, the Design Sprint works as the perfect methodology to streamline the product development process.?

More from me soon - till then, keep creating and keep improvising!?

Meanwhile - check out our Webinar on the MVP and Design Sprint for a glimpse into the process.