What is a Design Sprint For?

The Who, What, When, Where & Why of the 5-day Sprint

This article was originally published on voltagecontrol.com

The Design Sprint is a staple structure in the world of facilitation for solving big challenges. It’s a five-day process, initially developed at Google Ventures, used for validating ideas and tackling a business problem. The process guides teams through a design-based thinking process to uncover insights, prototype an idea, and test it with users.

Whether you are preparing to run your own sprint or are going to partake in one as a participant, it is important to know the ins and outs of Design Sprints to get the most out of them. Let’s take a look.

Why Run a Design Sprint?

Design Sprints have multiple functions and benefits. Here are some of the top reasons to run a sprint:

• Align a team around a shared vision.
• Answer critical business questions.
• Discover the essence of a creative challenge or problem.
• Cut through endless internal debate by building a prototype that your customers can give feedback on.

When to Run a Design Sprint

Design Sprints are beneficial at various stages of a project or product life cycle. The following are some excellent times to turn to a sprint:

• When kicking off a new initiative.
• When looking for new breakthrough features for a product.
• When you need to switch gears or iterate on a current product.
• When you haven’t talked to your users enough.

How to Find the Magic

The Design Sprint is a platform/tooling agnostic. It helps companies find the magic and deep value for their end-user before building anything. The sprint helps teams identify their core “jobs to be done”; what’s most important to focus on and how to get there.

Think of the Design Sprint process and prototyping as the evolution of Mario in the image below:

The Design Sprint is a process to find out what your version of fire-spitting Mario is; the end-users’ experience with your product is the focus–the magic you want to create! How you actually build the product and what you build it with is a follow-up endeavor. After sprinting, your team will have more confidence in the core value and needs of the end-user before the heavy work of actually building the product.

The Design Sprint helps us make sure we are building the right thing rather than obsessing on getting the thing exactly right.

Focus on Desire

The Design Sprint is targeted at testing desirability–keep this at the forefront of your mind. If you can design outside the tool and test your ideal vision, you can gain deeper insights around the ideal state and desirability from the end-user. You can then take those insights to the table when you build out the final solution. While it is efficient and a big win when your prototype becomes the spec for your build, it’s primary goal is to answer your questions and gain insights.

At Voltage Control, we always recommend including someone in the Design Sprint that understands the logistics (ex: engineer, operations, hardware, software, materials, etc.). A person with specific logistics insight can lend some perspective that might inspire others with the confidence they need to do certain things. This person also serves as a built-in filter to keep the group from wasting time on outlandish, impractical ideas. That said, the facilitator must ensure that the logistics and status quo aren’t stifling innovation, but rather informing and directing it.

Where to Run a Design Sprint

The five-day sprint was originally developed as an in-person workshop. People come together for an engaging, interactive experience and participate in hands-on, visual, deep work collaboration. Sticky notes are aplenty and whiteboards are used to write and sketch out ideas. However, you don’t need to wait to be IRL to undergo a sprint. Remote Design Sprints are also an option, and an increasingly popular one due to The Great Pause. With adjustments to cater to the virtual landscape, your team can still experience effective and productive remote collaboration. There are even virtual whiteboards (yes, digital stickies!) and other remote tools to promote visual collaboration just as you would in-person.

Who Participates in a Design Sprint

Everyone involved in a Design Sprint plays a vital role.

The Pitcher is the person with the big idea; they have the vision. They seek to answer: What is the problem you are addressing and what is your desired outcome? The sprint is designed to build and leverage something that comes closest to their “right thing.”

The sprint team is a curation of any and everyone who you want to be part of the sprint process. Who’s opinion and insight do you value? Who’s voice and input do you need most to get you from point A to point B? Maybe it’s your entire team, maybe it’s a select few. Pro tip: Put people of diverse perspectives and backgrounds in the room to gain insight into all angles of the problem/idea. This will strengthen your ultimate outcome.

The Decider is the person who will make the ultimate decision. Perhaps it is the CEO or a stakeholder; they have the final say. It is their approval you seek to take the generated idea to the next level of integration.

The Facilitator is a non-biased and neutral leader who is an expert in facilitation. This person can be internal or external to your organization. Pro tip: hire an outside facilitator when dealing with big/sensitive decisions. They are removed from office politics, making it easier to enforce good behavior from the group and it protects the leadership from including a specific agenda. A workshop facilitator increases engagement and positivity in the group, and an outside facilitator is a fresh new face and personality who can help to break old patterns and create new ones for optimum productivity.

Want to learn more about Design Sprints?

From expert facilitation to in-house training, we are here to help you succeed. Please reach out to us at [email protected].