Yeah, a Design Sprint caused that grin!

Have you ever had one of those epic experiences where everything comes together perfectly? You're mountain biking, your legs feel strong, and everything flows as you hit the down hill. At the end of the ride you just can't help but grin. Or, recently I got to savor a college baseball game with my oldest and youngest sons - the weather was so perfect that we didn't notice the weather. We hadn't eaten all day and the trays of food hit the spot. To top it off our team had a monster victory. Looking at those precious boys throughout the game I wasn't ready for the evening to become a memory - but every time I think of it a smile comes. 

Recently I had an epic experience at work when I ran my first design sprint with a team of nine super smart employees. My oldest son turned me on to Jake Knapp's, "SPRINT - How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days." I have been a process resolution junky for a long time. I cut my teeth on interest based negotiation skills and tactics (Fisher and Ury “Getting to Yes”). A great process, but it can take a lot of time. So, the thought of solving a big problem in five days was intriguing. Fortunately, learning of Jake Knapp’s book timed perfectly with our organization’s desire to blow up our traditional performance appraisal process and tools.

There are three things that I think make Sprint's super effective. First, they are time limited. Your team has 35 hours in one week to create a prototype that solves a big problem. Further, each decision within the Sprint is time limited. Purposeful time constraint within the Sprint framework is an efficient way to find the best answers with, literally, a clock ticking. I now find myself getting antsy in run of the mill meetings where there is a lot of talking and no resolution.

Second, there is a "decider." At the beginning of the Sprint week you designate the person who will make directional decisions all week long. The decisions range from simple - "Should we put another minute on the clock?" - to pithy, "Which portion of the problem should we focus on and create a resolution prototype?" Seems simple, but how many meetings do you go to where you try to reach consensus - and lo and behold two meetings later you are still talking about the same thing.

Third, on the Friday of the Sprint week you debut your prototype with 5 customers - in our case - 5 employees. You get immediate reactions. The brilliance behind the Sprint design is that you fail or succeed quickly before investing a lot of time, resources, technology, or impacting people.

At the end of the Sprint week we had tackled a huge issue - redesigning our performance appraisal process. What we ended up creating was a "framework that engages and empowers employees and connects them to the City's vision, mission, and values." The new framework is aptly named "Connect Boise." At its heart, Connect Boise is not a performance appraisal. In fact, when Connect Boise rolls out Citywide, the City will no longer have performance appraisals. Rather, Connect Boise is a framework that encourages important discussions to occur between a supervisor and an employee. It helps employees take the reins of their career to outline and achieve professional and related personal goals. It connects employees across departments, divisions, and teams. It encourages employees to give regular feedback to each other, to a supervisor, and to receive continual feedback. When fully developed it will provide opportunities for growth and development that eclipse traditional performance management systems.

We all walked out of the room on the fifth day with big teethy grins. We had achieved what Jake Knapp expresses at the end of the book, "Each of us has only so much time in a day, in a year, and in our lives. When you go to work in the morning, you should know that your time and effort will count. You should have confidence that you’re making a difference in real people’s lives." Mission accomplished!

If you want to discuss Sprints we are happy to share our experience.