We spent the day with Jake Knapp, in this article we share 4 insider tips from the master on how to execute the “map” section of a design sprint.
Day two of Chop Chop Consulting was spent in the esteemed company of Jake Knapp, the author and inventor of the Sprint process. Of course, the best bits were the off the cuff remarks, the anecdotes, and the secret tips that Jake has gained from running hundreds and hundreds of sprints.
To get all the good stuff you will have to go and see the man himself, but one of the things Jake won’t mind us sharing was hacks for map making.
This part of the sprint can trip up a lot of teams, often because of the question of fidelity. Some stakeholders want the map to be hyper-detailed, anything less can feel like it’s not robust enough, others want to keep it simple and get overwhelmed with minutiae.
The map is key, and difficult to get right, so herewith four tips to help you navigate this stage like the smooth cool ninja facilitator you most certainly are:
#1 Get someone else to do it.
- The idea is you pick the team member that you think has the best handle on the process, and have them take the lead on sketching the map. This way you can nudge and prod the process instead of being under fire for getting it right.
#2 Pre-prepare the map
- Ahead of time look at the client/product and sketch out what you think the map might look like. Then very humbly offer it up as a starting point for the team to polish. This can save a lot of back and forth between conflicting viewpoints on what the map should look like, and avoids the oh-no-it’s-a-blank-sheet-of-paper, moment.
#3 Use a basic template: “discover : learn : start”
- As a basic, almost universal flow, Jake recommended “discover : learn : start.” If you’re new to mapping or flow design, this is a good universal starting point that will at least get you up and running. Once you’ve figured out these basic steps you can start adding interstitial or follow on steps as needed.
#4: Use note and map
- This is a process created during design sprint 2.0. Basically every team member notes out what they think the map flow should be, on their own. You then place everyone’s version of the flow on one sheet of paper/board. The team then vote with dot stickers on which steps of the flow are the strongest, and you synthesise a final map flow from the steps with the most votes. We can see this being very useful where there are sharply divergent viewpoints on what the flow should look like, make its construction more democratic.
So that was four quick hacks Jake shared for successfully navigating the “map” part of the sprint process. For the rest of Jake’s insider tips check out videos from Jake or buy his book.
Chop Chop x
Couple of final bonus takeaways:
At the end of the workshop we scooted around all the work up on the walls. What was remarkable was that although we were all working on the exact same (relatively simple) problem, every team had different ideas for what type of product solution should be tested. The depth of possibility you can get from even relatively simple problems is pretty amazing.
Learning how to do a proper high-five and then using that as an energiser between every exercise is a ninja move and fits perfectly in our list of how to run amazing large workshops.
