Using the Design Sprint for process engineering problems

Tom Connor
Nov 3 · 5 min read

For issues with a well defined problem statement, the Design Sprint can be a great tool to design, prototype and implement successful solutions.

Photo by John T on Unsplash

As a process engineer in a complex industrial plant, I find we are often trying to juggle many projects at once. This can make it difficult to focus on quickly delivering value on a single project. An agile approach that can help is the Design Sprint.

The Design Sprint is a structured process, designed by Google Ventures for

answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers. It’s a “greatest hits” of business strategy, innovation, behavior science, design thinking, and more — packaged into a battle-tested process that any team can use. (GV.com)

Nominally, the process runs over 5 days :

On Monday, you’ll map out the problem and pick an important place to focus. On Tuesday, you’ll sketch competing solutions on paper. On Wednesday, you’ll make difficult decisions and turn your ideas into a testable hypothesis. On Thursday, you’ll hammer out a high-fidelity prototype. And on Friday, you’ll test it with real live humans.

- Design Sprint format (Peter Diamandis)

It builds on the design thinking structure and provides a framework for problems that are well defined and require targeted focus to get an MVP solution (Minimum Viable Product) up and running (or SLC as this blog convincingly argues — Simple, Lovable and Complete.)

The focused timing of the sprint provides a creative constraint that ensures only the key scope of the problem can be worked on and to be successful participants cannot be distracted by other periphery issues or considerations.

Tim Brown — Change by Design

Spotify have adapted the process to a shorter sprint, run over 4 hours, designed to:

  1. better understand our users’ pain points, goals, needs;
4 Hour Sprint Spotify
Agenda — 4 Hour Sprint Spotify

Some tips to get the most out of the process:

  • Problem Definition — Ensure you have a very clearly defined problem with the participants in the sprint having a very empathetic understanding of the customers pain. Consider using the Experience Map, Empathy Map, and systems thinking tools to help you look at connections and linkages beyond the linear 5 why’s type analysis.

Lean Kaizen Event

The design sprint is very similar to a lean / six sigma tool called a Kaizen, which is also focused on creating business value by rapidly creating a step change in a particular business area, through the creation of a autonomous team of people, taken out of the day to day business noise.

A typical 5 day Kaizen event might look like this:

  • Day 1: Document and agree on the current state. Define desired state.

And over a wider frame includes these event phases:

References:

10x Curiosity

Always curious - curating knowledge to solve problems and create change. I write for myself to capture interesting links and synthesise ideas I am trying to learn.

Tom Connor

Written by

Always curious - curating knowledge to solve problems and create change

10x Curiosity

Always curious - curating knowledge to solve problems and create change. I write for myself to capture interesting links and synthesise ideas I am trying to learn.

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