Day 35 — Process series 4/7: “Google Design Sprint”
In Agile principles, it talks about “Deliver working software frequently”, we can learn fast and learn often from user feedback, and not to get into “analysis paralysis”. The build-measure-learn process is great, but is there anyway we can make it even faster and cheaper? Introducing: Google Design Sprint!
Up and coming
If there’s poll about what’s the hottest, most discussed design process these days, my vote will go to Google Design Sprint. Originally incubated at Google by Jake Knapp, the process was tested many years in Google Venture and later broadcasted in creative industry. If you look around, there are many local meetups to discuss it, fan groups, blogs, and all kinds of online resource for it. The Sprint book was published on March 8, 2016, and quickly became a NY Times and WSJ Bestseller. Companies like Nest, Uber, Medium, Blue Bottle, and Slack have adopted it. Why is it so popular now? What is its secret power? Here’s a quick introduction of:
- what is Design Sprint,
- why use it,
- what it’s not,
- how to run it efficiently.
Design Sprint in a Nutshell
Let’s breakdown the key characteristic of a Design Sprint:
1. Compact version of Design Thinking
Google Design Sprint is a powerful 1-week bundle of design activities, in which simulating Design Thinking’s 5 stages framework, but crunch all the good stuff in one week. Here’s the simple breakdown (see figure below). The (almost) whole process is condensed to 5 days:
- run business download and problem definition on Monday,
- start generate ideas on Tuesday,
- pick the good ones and reiterate on Wednesday,
- use the winning idea to prototype on Thursday,
- and verify with real users on Friday.
2. Need for Speed
For a long time, we’ve been advocating for accessing to real users and verify assumptions as soon as possible. With Design Sprint, you can bypass the process of getting development team onboard, working out back end server and API, all other technical challenges (see figure below). You can get your answer within a week. This is very powerful way to verify business assumptions for it’s high ROI and fast pace.
So, what’s the catch?
With all the great things about Design Sprint, it’s not saying there’s no downside of it at all. There’s some observed issues around Design Sprint adoption:
1. Common confusion
I’ve been asked quite often about, how is Design Sprint different than Scrum’s Sprint? Is it just using that analogy to do design? First of all, Google Design Sprint is NOT using Scrum’s Sprint to run design exercise. The fundamental differences includes:
- Goal: Design Sprint aims to focus on the end result of the week to verify the assumptions, it’s a tactical solution. On the other hand, Scrum’s Sprint in Agile focuses not only the product, but how the project is run throughout time to ensure it’s running efficiency and efficacy.
- Model & Cycle: Design Sprint is meant to be an powerful one-off solutions to get your answer fast. Therefore lots of effort was embedded in the planning stage before the Sprint, in order to makes it work. Quite the opposite, Scrum’s Sprint in Agile has all the routines and rituals to ensure the repeating and sustainable process can be run however long the project need it to be.
- Team: Design Sprint doesn’t pay much attention on developing the project team, while it’s crucial for Scrum’s Sprint in Agile to focus on the team members in order to make it a sustainable process and motivating project.
2. Large upfront effort & dependencies
- Planing & Logistics: “Garbage in, garbage out.” In order to run a successful Design Sprint, lots of upfront planning/logistics need to be sorted out, so that the day-1 business download session provides enough information for designer to define the right problem to solve.
- Scrum master: Unlike Scrum Master in Agile Scrum as a full time role, Design Sprint Scrum Master is a temporary role. However, as a Design Sprint Scrum Master, she has tons of work to do to make it a successful Design Sprint. The common challenge is around logistic, how to get all the business partners leave time to be involved: Business Download, Feedback session, etc. Also if the team is new to the Design Sprint process, it requires large amount effort for Scurm Master to facilitate and provide guidance. In short, the quality of Design Sprint is highly dependent on the experience level of Design Sprint Scrum Master.
3. Abuse & Misuse
Because Design Sprint could be fast and powerful, it tends to get stakeholder overly excited about this types of process that’s lower investment/ higher return. We’ve witnessed situations that after a successful Design Sprint, stakeholder decided to drop the investment on a longer term Design Thinking process, and asked for more of the Design Sprint instead. As a result, proper and required user research got sacrificed, and the project didn’t take off, due to repeating trial-and-error through Scrum or Design Sprint.
Other scenario is that someone who doesn’t know Design Sprint well enough decided to run it routinely just similar to a dev Sprint in Scrum. Without proper timeline for planning and logistics, the quality of these repeating Design Sprints became really low. Also the intense 1 week Design Sprint tends to drain designer’s energy, therefore it’s not meant to run it routinely like Scrum Sprints.
How do we get it right
- Know when is a proper time to use it. Design Sprint is especially valuable when a key business/ design assumption needs to be verified early on by real users. For example, designing the navigation system of a large platform. If we don’t get it right early on, it creates all types of ripple effect down the road.
- Know its limitation: Because of the short time frame for problem definition, it’s not meant to solve for complex business logic definition which requires lots of different groups with a longer engagement model.
- Manage team energy: Because its condensed nature in which Design Sprint is meant to complete a lot in a short time frame, it tends to be intense and consumes lots of energy from team members (see figure above). It’s also Scrum Master’s job to make sure people are happy, fed, productive, and having fun (as possible). Bringing food, snack, jokes, short fun video can help team endure the in week-long intense work a bit easier.
- Buffer time, before & after: Before the Design Sprint starts, the Design Sprint Scrum Master needs time to “herd the cat”, getting all the people scheduled at right time/ right place for all sorts of collaboration. Therefore, a buffer time would be helpful for Scrum Master. Also, Design Sprint is a intense one-week dedication from the design team. After it ends, designers deserve to have some sort of break, in order to recover from it.
- Consider alternative Design Sprint methods: Except for original intense 5-day, lock-in-a-room-style Design Sprint, there’s also alternative ways like 4-day Design Sprint (figure below) which front loads the problem defining, some argue the most challenging part, ahead of the Design Sprint kicks off. By doing so, you can get more collaboration with stakeholders to pin down the right problem to solve, and prevent from “Garbage in, Garbage out”. Other than that, there’s also remote collaboration style like Global Virtual Design Sprint, where people can collaborate through online tools.
Summary
- Design Sprint is powerful and fast, however the preparation work needs to be thorough;
- Design Sprint requires lots of collaboration and effort and consumes lots of energy from team, therefore it’s a good one-off tool, but not sustainable to make it a routine exercise like Agile Scrum Sprint.
- To get it right, find an experienced Design Sprint Scrum Master, provide enough buffer time to get the logistics in place, and make a case study to prove the value and do more!
Do you have any stories or experience about Design Sprint that you’d like to share? I’m excited to learn from you!
ABC. Always be clappin’.
