One day with Jake Knapp.
I went to Switzerland 2 months ago for the Jake Knapp Design sprint workshop. This was a very special day for me because I have worked following the Design sprint recipe for 8 years since I read Jake’s first articles on the Google Venture blog.
These articles were all I had to guide myself for my first sprint master experience. Just these articles…
10+ (5 days) sprints later, the book released! All of Jake’s concepts were contained inside this “Bible”(which is not a Bible). This book is a game-changing collection of tools, tips and strategies to learn and make projects more valuable. This book was my best friend for 3 years and more than 30 sprints.
Stéphane Cruchon, another great sprint master friend of mine, met Jake in the US during a special Google event about the Google DS version. They clicked together and Stephane proposed that Jake come to visit him in Lausanne, Switzerland. I was so happy to hear this: I would finally be able to meet the man who inspired the way I work. Maybe even more, he created a profound shift in my mind: humans are socials animals. They need to physically be in the same room as each other to give their best! Relationships are our most precious natural gift. We are here to live in eco-systems and perhaps our minds are made to think within systems too! Now, after the first door was opened by Jake’s concepts, I call myself a systems thinker, facilitator and regenerative designer!
It was impossible for me to miss this event in Lausanne. I went and listened very carefully to Jake’s updates about his awesome creation. This is why I have written this article: I wanted to share these updates with you, maybe to help us create our own new versions of design sprints.
Jake’s updates
First observation: there were 70 people in the room for the workshop. Jake separated us into tables of 4/5 people. This was an interesting number for an introductory workshop, with no facilitators on the tables.
During the workshop phases, he never said “stop”, he used “pause” instead.
He explained that the perfect usage of a Design sprint is at the beginning of a big opportunity project. You will not create the whole project during the sprint, but you will be able to understand the complexity of it and formulate the firsts steps… Maybe this is the most important thing to have when you start a project… The first step towards STARTING.
IT IS BETTER TO GET STARTED THAN TO BE PERFECT.
Look at all the blockchain projects: they are white papers, with a lot of theories, a lot of code but never with any real world actions…
Design sprints are the perfect first step for user research too. Because, with a first draft prototype, you have something concrete and you have a team that know each other after only 5 days :)
Day 1 — Understand
- For the long term metrics, he chose 12 to 18 months.
- He uses the “note and vote” tool to converge on the long term board.
- The main question he asked: How could this go wrong?
- He always started with yes/no questions followed by open questions using can/will/is.
- He explained very well that the goal of the day was to CHOOSE YOUR BEST QUESTIONS.
- To select questions he used votes: 2 votes only.
- The sprint question selection was made by a “WHAT COULD CAUSE THIS TOGO WRONG” mindset.
- The expert phase was not an interview. This was just a conversation.
- During this conversation, you have to capture and keep going.
- You need the research expert in the room!
The map
A little paragraph about the map… this is always a sprint master problem because everybody understands “the map” with their own mindset. For example, if you are a UX design facilitator, you may interpret the map as customer map. It is not.
He explained that THE MAP IS A ZOOMED OUT CUSTOMER MAP. A big picture of the situation. The first version is only a draft, made to be redrawn a lot! So don’t try to create the perfect map at the beginning, this is not the point of day 1.
Steps of this linear map:
- Actors
- Discover
- Learn
- Start
- Outcome
It is important to map on your own — Whiteboard/Paper/Paper & sticky notes… Look at the Stéphane Cruchon’s map style :
You need different people maps because this shows the group all the MENTAL MAP MODEL. It’s a way to understand how each member thinks.
The HMW (How might we ?)
- Each participant chooses his 2 best HMW.
- 1 vote (dot on a sticky note) only.
- HMW are just needed TO DETECT MOMENTS ON THE MAP.
At the end of day 1, you need to have your SPRINT QUESTIONS, your MAP and your TARGET. The users’ profiles can come LATER, this is not a real problem.
Day 2 — Diverge
For the lightning demos, you only need 2/3 objects per person.
BEFORE SOLVING, REFRESH YOUR MEMORY
4 steps sketch
This process is designed to shift you from NOTE (copying) to IDEAS (creating).
You need your TARGET + GOAL + SPRINT MAIN QUESTION — This is the DANGER REMINDER for sketches!
For the Crazy 8’s: DON’T BE PRECIOUS — KEEP GOING
CONCRETE IS BETTER THAN ABSTRACT
Day 3 — Converge
For the museum step, always NOTE & LABEL KEYS IDEAS.
Day 4 — Prototype
The prototype is created to FAKE IT, TO LEARN NOT TO VALIDATE.
This day is not to be wasted on building. DON’T WASTE TIME BUILDING.
People that will test your prototype need to FEEL IN THE MOMENT.
Day 5 — Test & Learn
Design sprints are for learning. What we need at the beginning of a project is to learn. TO LEARN NOT TO VALIDATE IDEAS OR PROTOTYPES. Design sprints are made to become agile: REPEAT AND REPEAT AGAIN.
This is an important part: design sprints are there to help you and your team change your mindsets about how to make a project. If you do a design sprint with old mindsets, it will fail for sure. But it is not the sprint that fails: it is your old mindset.
SPRINTING IS LEARNING — TO KEEP MOVING
Facilitators Tips
Being naive is good. Starting a design sprint knowing nothing and nobody is great!
Design sprints are a recipe and only a recipe. You can create and test your own versions, but you have to understand beforehand why Jake’s version is great and how it works.
This is like when you cook: you start with your mother’s recipe, you understand the steps, the systems, the tools, the logic. You test, fail and test it again and after these loops, you start to write your own recipe.
During the sprint preparation, it’s good to be lazy. In a LAZINESS LIMITS DISASTER mindset.
At the end
I was so happy to meet Jake. I think he is the only man with who I made a selfie! I enjoyed his conclusion very much: for him, we are THE FIRST WAVE. Our societies are changing very fast, our cultures are evolving drastically. Companies are understanding that humans do their best when they work together and when they play using good tools with the help of naive strangers (facilitators & experts).
Humans DO love to solve problems. They can solve everything, so if you put 7 people on a useless game, they can spend 3 months working on it if they work in these kinds of good conditions.
BUT, maybe it’s time for humans to reorient their attention, and to solve real problems. (for the True True Life -Atlas movie…)
Thank you Jake Knapp for this quick day. Now I know I’m in a good place with my personal version of the design sprint, respecting the aspects that you improved and adapted to the European culture; working with big group on organizational and cultural transformation subjects.
What could I add to the design sprint recipe? Environmental consideration, systemic approach, regenerative priorities. Maybe only logical life-centric principles.
Don’t hesitate to drop me a line if you want me to complete these updates about the Design sprint.
Thank you Rik Godwin helping me with your corrections.
