Sprint Week: Wednesday

By Wednesday morning of your sprint, you and your team will have a stack of solutions based on your sketches from Tuesday. That’s great, but it’s also a problem. You can’t prototype and test them all?—?you need one solid plan. In the morning, you’ll critique each solution, and decide which ones have the best chance of achieving your long-term goal. Then, in the afternoon, you’ll take the winning scenes from your sketches and weave them into a storyboard: a step-by-step plan for your prototype.

For a complete and detailed guide to Wednesday’s activities and the rest of the sprint, check out Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. In this post, we’re sharing the checklist for Wednesday and a new video where Jake and I talk about Wednesday’s decision-making exercises.

We’re also hosting a live chat Q&A on Wednesday, April 20 from 9–10 a.m. Pacific time. (Here’s a list of global times.) Join us to ask questions about Wednesday or any other part of your sprint.

Checklist for Wednesday

Note: Schedules are approximate. Don’t worry if you run behind. Remember to take breaks every sixty to ninety minutes (or around 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. each day).

10 a.m.

? Sticky decision. Follow these five steps to choose the strongest solutions:

1. Art museum. Tape the solution sketches to the wall in one long row. (Read more on page 132 in Sprint.)
2. Heat map. Have each person review the sketches silently and put one to three small dot stickers beside every part he or she likes. (p. 132)
3. Speed critique. Three minutes per sketch. As a group, discuss the highlights of each solution. Capture standout ideas and important objections. At the end, ask the sketcher if the group missed anything. (p. 135)
4. Straw poll. Each person silently chooses a favorite idea. All at once, each person places one large dot sticker to register his or her (nonbinding) vote. (p. 138)
5. Supervote. Give the Decider three large dot stickers and write her initials on the sticker. Explain that you’ll prototype and test the solutions the Decider chooses. (p. 140)

11:30-ish

? Divide winners from “maybe-laters.” Move the sketches with supervotes together. (p. 141)

? Rumble or all-in-one. Decide if the winners can fit into one prototype, or if conflicting ideas require two or three competing prototypes in a Rumble. (p. 145)

? Fake brand names. If you’re doing a Rumble, use a Note-and-Vote to choose fake brand names. (p. 145)

? Note-and-Vote. Use this technique whenever you need to quickly gather ideas from the group and narrow down to a decision. Ask people to write ideas individually, then list them on a whiteboard, vote, and let the Decider pick the winner. (p. 146)

1 p.m.

? Lunch

2 p.m.

? Make a storyboard. Use a storyboard to plan your prototype. (p. 149)

1. Draw a grid. About fifteen squares on a whiteboard. (p. 152)
2. Choose an opening scene. Think of how customers normally encounter your product or service. Keep your opening scene simple: web search, magazine article, store shelf, etc. (p. 153)
3. Fill out the storyboard. Move existing sketches to the storyboard when you can. Draw when you can’t, but don’t write together. Include just enough detail to help the team prototype on Thursday. When in doubt, take risks. The finished story should be five to fifteen steps. (p. 154)

Facilitator Tip

Don’t drain the battery. Each decision takes energy. When tough decisions appear, defer to the Decider. For small decisions, defer until tomorrow. Don’t let new abstract ideas sneak in. Work with what you have. (p. 159)

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Sprint Week Series
Previous: Tuesday
Next: Thursday (coming soon!)

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For a complete guide to running your own sprint, check out Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. It’s got detailed hour-by-hour instructions and behind-the-scenes stories from startups like Slack, Airbnb, and Medium. Sprint is available from Amazon and a number of other retailers.