Design Sprints
Like all creative endeavors, it usually helps to direct your efforts through a structured process; not only to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the task at hand but also to help mitigate any spinning of the proverbial ‘wheels’ absent of progress. For we all know…
“Not all action is progress.”
The Design Sprint is meant to elicit progress through action and is useful in generating excitement and common knowledge of a new project with everyone in the office. Though team-building activities are great in and of themselves, the great thing about Design Sprints is that it has all the bells and whistles of a team-building activity AND it generates serious progress for new profit-generating projects.
What’s a Design Sprint
The Design Sprint is a methodology for solving problems through designing, prototyping, and testing ideas with users. Design Sprints quickly align teams under a shared vision with clearly defined goals and deliverables. Ultimately, it is a tool for developing a hypothesis, prototyping an idea, and testing it rapidly with as little investment as possible in as real an environment as possible.
But the Design Sprint is not just about efficiency. It’s also an excellent way to stop the old defaults of office work and replace them with a smarter, more respectful, and more effective way of solving problems that brings out the best contributions of everyone on the team — including the decision-maker — and helps you spend your time on work that really matters.
Several Versions
There are now various versions and opinions on how exactly to do a Design Sprint; some good and some not so good. As with any framework, its evolution is not so much a construct of good, better, best so much as it is result of individual tailoring that gets shared and reapplied. Though the original source for the framework is often the best source for getting the “how-to”how; some variation from the original idea may actually suit your team’s needs a little better. Determining how your sprint should be conducted, iterated and managed ultimately is in your hands so choose wisely from the options. Some break up the process into sequential days, others assign specific weekdays to each step. Some present the concept as phases to be stepped in and out of as the creative process ebbs and flows. While others place hirer demands on decision makers and facilitators. Whatever the recommendation, you should feel empowered by its offering.
Design Sprints Work
Despite the various nuances of differing opinions and approaches to how exactly to conduct a Design Sprint, the one thing that most people tend to agree on is that the process works; it generates results.
As you can see common among the variances depicted above, there are 5 stages:
- Understand — Make a Map & Choose a Target
- Diverge — Sketch Solutions
- Converge — Decide on the Best Solution
- Build — Construct a Prototype
- Test — Validate with Customers
References
Content: 3rd Para. / 4th Para.
Design Sprint Images: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
Images: Sprint, By Jake Knapp
