It takes a lot of planning and thought processes to develop a successful product, one which serves the need of the customers and meets the goal of the company. There are different processes involved during product development, and Design sprint is one of them. In this article, I will be discussing what design sprint is and the need for a design sprint to be done before a product is developed. If you haven’t used design sprint before or you are a beginner in product development or you are seeking ways of making the product development work easier then this article is for you.
This article is divided into these subtopics:-
- What is design sprint
- What characterizes each day of the sprint?
- The need for design Sprint
- Factors that enhance the success of a sprint.
- Resources
What is Design sprint?
A design sprint is a time-constrained, five-phase process that uses design thinking with the aim of reducing the risk when bringing a new product, service or feature to the market. – Wikipedia
Jake Knapp created the Design Sprint process at Google in 2010. He took inspiration from many places, including Google's product development culture, IDEO's design thinking workshops, ideas like Basecamp's Getting Real and Atul Gawande's The Checklist, and his own experience building products like Gmail and Hangouts. - thesprintbook.com
It involves a team of people from different career backgrounds and diverse skills blocking out five working days from their calendar to conduct a survey, understand a product and come up with a working prototype of the proposed product.
What characterizes each day of the sprint?
Since it is a five-day activity there are different tasks to be performed on each day that will lead to the developing of a working prototype and its testing.
Before the sprint starts few things have to be put into consideration:
The team: For sprints, it is ideal for the team to be made up of 7 people at most, having a team of more than 7 people slows down the sprint. It is also necessary that the team has people with diverse skills and from different career backgrounds.
The decider: The decider is the decision-maker for the team. The decider must understand the problem in-depth, and must be someone from within the team. He or she can influence decisions.
The Facilitator: Is responsible for managing time, leading the meeting, ensuring that things are done the right way.
Whiteboard: The whiteboard is an important tool used in the sprint because the majority of the exercises will be done on it for a more visual experience.
The different days in a sprint: -
Monday(Map).
On Monday the team comes together to discuss the project, its long term goals and the sprint goal. The experts in the team and outside the team are interviewed to gain a broader perspective of the possible bottlenecks and other things that were not put into consideration. After the experts' interview, the sprint goal and project goals are updated and turned into ideas using the How might We note. At the end of the day, the team is aware of their most important customers and how the product will solve their problem.
Tuesday (Sketching).
On Tuesday the team looks at the possible solutions to the problem that they want to solve. Every member of the team comes up with a sketch from the ideas they got for the solution. The reason for sketching is so that the team will have a clear visual and good understanding of the proposed solution sketch.
Before the end of the day, the facilitator appoints who will recruit experts for the prototype testing on Friday.
Wednesday(Decide):
The best solution from the sketches done on Tuesday is chosen. The team discusses the sketches before the vote, highlighting the unique properties of each solution. When there is a tie between sketches, the decider chooses the best solution.
A storyboard for the use case scenarios is drawn. The storyboard will help you plan the prototype efficiently.
The voting and the storyboard is done on the whiteboard.
Thursday:
Using the storyboard a prototype is built. In the case of a software project, the design team designs a low-fidelity (lo-fi) prototype that can be used for testing. The prototype must not be complex so it can be discarded when the need arises. The main value of a prototype lies in its ability to show the functionality of the proposed product. By the end of Thursday, the prototype is ready for testing. The interviewees for Friday is reminded either by text or by mail.
Friday:
It is advised that 5 people are interviewed. The purpose of the interview is to discover how users might use the product and their possible behavioural pattern. The interviewees will be allowed to interact with the prototype after which they will be asked questions. The questions that are asked during or after the interview will help the team to improve their solution.
Note: One of the features of a design sprint is the minimized use of time. Time should be allocated to the different activities and allocated time should not be exceeded.
Arguments should be avoided, instead of arguments voting should be doing and the opinion of the decider stands.
Do not overthink the product into a complex problem. All solution and problems must be kept in a simple form. This also applies to the prototype.
The need for design sprints
- It helps the product development team to know the potential of their product to either fail or succeed this is because the development team and the stakeholders give due consideration to any question that might arise concerning the project.
- The customers' needs are discovered and provisions are made for it at the early stage of the project.
- It also helps the team to understand how the users will use their proposed products.
Factors that enhance the success of a sprint.
Not all design sprints are successful. Some factors are responsible for every successful design sprint. These factors are but not limited to:
Having the right challenge:
Having the right product, Asking the right questions, focusing on the things that really matter to the proposed product is important for the sprint to be successful.
Having the right team:
Having the right team in a sprint is very crucial to the success of the sprint. A team of seven is the best. The ideal team is made of people from different career backgrounds and diverse skills. There is need for diversity in the idea for the solutions to the problems. The facilitator needs to remain unbiased about decisions, and the role of facilitator and decider should not be given to one person.
Having the time and space:
The team must be willing to block the five days from their calendar. Sprints require energy, focus and members of the team must remain motivated. Having an office space to yourselves during the sprint helps to reduce the distraction that will slow down the progress of the sprint.
In conclusion, there might be a need for another iteration of the design sprint after the first one. All the feedbacks gotten from the first design sprint is used to improve its second iteration. Design sprints can be adapted to suit the need of the company and the structure of the company.
I have added the link to some resources for further reading and learning. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter and share with your friends. Don't forget to drop a like.
References & Resources
- Sprint book
- Sprint by AJ and smart
- Wikipedia