Preparing for the Design Sprint

The Easter is getting closer, much faster than expected, suddenly the yearly easter eggs were on our desks.

Lately we have been working on coordination and alignment, and of course practicalities related to the design sprint we will run from april 24th to 26th.

Earlier this weak we arranged a meeting with corporate strategists to inform about the innovation process, and discuss some specific ideas in the light of the strategic initiatives currently rolling up. We also informed about the first design sprint.

From the discussions with the strategists we see that for some innovation ideas, it will be both natural and effective to align tightly with what's going on for specific strategic plays. E.g. ideas and strategic initiatives have synergies - and we will benefit of joining our forces on these ones.

Most of the ideas can be traced back to that of increasing revenue and/or reducing costs, as such make the company more profitable. Some even add additional value, such as strengthening the brand. 

Based on customer insight we have decided to run a design sprint coupled to the customer journey, in the area of buying a new car. We have identified an area in this process we believe we can improve in. We also believe a 3-day design sprint is what's needed for us to get answers on our critical questions, given some up front preparations.

The preparations we have done so far includes that of running a lean canvas session on the topic. Doing this we learned more about the customer and dealer problem. Moreover we could see some potential solutions and value proposition elements. We will re-iterate over this analysis in the design sprint, and new participants will add insight.

We decided to involve the external vendors early on, so that they could do any possible preparations upfront. First we arranged one-to-one meetings with the vendors to check resource availability. Resource checks on things like office space, of course budget and process coaches have been done.

After the one-to-one meetings we arranged a common "inspirational session". We had prepared some material covering the problem-area, and visionary thoughts of how the future could look like if we solved the problem. After this session we followed up the vendors to pick up any questions. After this inspirational session one of the vendors decided to make a change in the resource setup for the design sprint. The vendors also made personal contacts, so that they could perform direct communication upfront the sprint.

Today the dealer was contacted, and we have booked a workshop room at the dealer's site. A week ago we also agreed what resources should attend from the dealer.

Our plan is to run the start of the sprint at the dealer's site, first half of day 1, then move to StartupLab. This split is due to practical business reasons on the dealer side, we have to be dynamic and flexible in order to cover all parties needs.

With yesterday's lean canvas training delivered by Futurice, and a highly motivated crew on board, we are now taxiing slowly.