What does Design Sprints have in common with running?
Jagoda Nowacka
That is, design sprint through the eyes of Berry.
Design Sprint is an effective method that, drawing from the Design Thinking approach , allows you to focus on the key problems of product and service design. By using it, you can save time and money, and increase the chances of success. In just 2-5 days, a design team can create a prototype of a product or service that is ready to be tested with users.
With Design Sprints it's like running - once we can run slower, and other times we need to speed up.
This method was developed by Google Ventures to speed up the project process and solve problems more efficiently. It is particularly useful for entrepreneurs, startups and project teams who want to minimize the risks associated with investing time and money in an idea that will not deliver the expected results.
The question arises, how is it possible to create something new, innovative, creative in such a short time? I didn't believe it, but I found out that thanks to the Design Sprint method we can do it as much as possible - we act in a short, but very succinct and effective (!) manner, which in a sense corresponds to the needs of our fast-paced life and fits into the current reality of the BANI world, which is characterized by high unpredictability and related fragility, a kind of anxiety generated, among other things, by the excess of stimuli reaching us, non-linearity, as well as lack of understanding.
How is the Design Sprint going?
Design Sprint is a design process that consists of 2-5 days. Each day has a task to be completed, allowing for efficient use of time and focus on key issues.
A mandatory stage before the sprint (0 is also a stage) is to establish the goal and outcomes of the workshop. The more described and specific the goal the better. We also define the necessary framework for design. We need a box for design - a little known truth.
An extremely important stage for the success of a Design Sprint (even before the actual process) is the integration necessary to make a collaborative team out of a group. First, the teams are built. It's important for effectiveness to get the right mix of people in the design teams. In building teams, we consider both competencies, skills, experience and cognitive styles. Then we integrate the team and contract, using, for example, the Team Canva tool.
The first day, or "Understanding," is dedicated to empathizing, gaining knowledge of the problem and understanding the needs of users and all important stakeholders in the project. The project team conducts market research, analyzes the competition and interviews potential users to understand their needs and expectations.
The second stage: "Creation," or ideation - the most creative stage of the entire process. The project team begins to generate ideas. Each member of the team presents his or her ideas, and together they create an initial pool of ideas to identify and address the most important design challenges. We all know that the real masters of creativity are children, but as it turns out - adults are just as likely to be carried away by spontaneity and the so-called "release of duplicity", and they are helped in creative techniques by various tools that activate the imagination and stimulate creativity, tkj.: the pyramid of associations, the game "Extraordinary" and many others.
What also works at this stage is using knowledge of trends or signals of change and finding their connection to our design challenge.
The third stage is the day of "Decisions", in which the project team selects the best idea and creates a product or service concept based on it. It then creates an initial prototype that will allow testing with users. This is not an easy stage. It is worth remembering: "...to get to the really good ideas, you have to kill a few darlings along the way."
Knowledge of the business context and current market trends can also help at this stage. The context is never static - it needs to be constantly updated by scanning the environment, while trends, on the other hand, are a bit more constant - they don't change as dynamically and frequently, allowing organizations to take some direction for the future. It's a good idea to go beyond your business and look to other industries for inspiration.
The fourth stage - "Prototyping" - is the day when the project team works on a detailed prototype of a product or service.
Why go. In addition to the opportunity to test the concept, through prototyping we reduce the risk of failure of the final solution and check that we all understand the idea in the same way, and all this in cooperation with users, whose opinion, as we know, is priceless.
Interestingly, since a prototype is only a preliminary visualization and not a full-fledged product, its form is not strictly defined and we can play with it! At the workshop, we create various mock-ups, paper and cardboard prototypes, storyboard, and even role-play or role-play.
In one day creates a version that will be ready for testing. It's at this stage that you find out that you can design, for example, an event out of LEGO bricks or a mockup of a product out of cardboard.
The final, fifth stage is "Testing." The project team tests the prototype on a group of users, preferably in a real stakeholder environment, to get their reactions, opinions and suggestions. This helps to assess whether the product or service is likely to succeed in the market. This is a very important moment when we verify the usability and validity of using prototypes in further stages of work.
Note: The biggest risk of this stage: the team has put a lot of energy and commitment into the solution, is "in love" with their idea and is trying to convince the user of their solution at all costs - this is when the team leader should step in.
For many organizations to "pull" employees away from their duties, allocating 5 whole days for such work is an unrealistic undertaking. The Design Sprint method meets this challenge, as in practice it turns out that the optimal length of this process is 2-3 days.
What's more, experience shows that Design Sprints can be carried out even in 1 day (!) if you have a narrow and specific problem to solve and a goal to achieve.
To summarize:
- Design Sprint is an effective design method that speeds up the process of creating products and services, increases the chances of success in the market, while minimizing the risks associated with investing time and money in a project that may not deliver the expected results.
- Deign Sprint - like Design Thinking - is an iterative process, so that, for example, the first stage of the workshop continues through the entire process, so to speak. Interestingly, Design Sprint is often the beginning of an ongoing iteration in organizations - it can be the start of further changes in the organization, it is a stimulus for development, a change of mindsets also after the workshop and during this period organizations return to the content covered in the workshop, e.g. recommendations.
If you would like to learn more about Design Sprint and are wondering if this design method would be right for your business, we encourage you to visit https://www.concordiadesign.pl/design-sprint/. We'll answer any questions you may have and help you assess what benefits this method could bring.
