Getting started with Design Sprints
If you’ve been reading and learning about the Design Sprint process, you’ve undoubtedly come across the following graphic floating all over the web.
This is a shot of Jake Knapp’s original infographic of the process from the Sprint Book, outlining the 5 fundamental steps in doing a traditional design sprint. You learn about the problem space, sketch some ideas out, decide on a direction, prototype it out and test it with target customers.
If you’re a fan of being more efficient with your time and getting things done, and the design sprint methodology seems appealing on its surface, it might prompt you to explore a bit more.
So let’s entertain that thought for a moment.
Let’s say you’ve starting doing some research on the design sprint process, and know enough to be dangerous.
Maybe you have the Sprint Book, watched some process hacks from AJ&Smart, consulted the Google Sprint Kit and pretty much done your homework. You may have even checked out how others have achieved success and learned a lot via Sprint Stories.
You might be pondering:
Do I really need to run a full 5-day design sprint to understand how to do it?
Do I have to get certified before even trying to do design sprints in the first place?
Do I need to be an innovator or designer to even try these?
Where do you start?
Here’s what I typically recommend as a plan of action for complete beginners and/or highly informed but largely unpracticed practitioners of the process.
Shadow boxing (i.e. practicing)
A lot of what’s found in the design sprint process can be utilized for personal and professional use. Depending on your inherent strengths and your disposition towards applying design thinking, you could try any of the following to get some reps in.
- The “Eisenhower Matrix” To-Do List
Utilized in Lightning Decision Jams (okay, not a Design Sprint, but a close cousin), this process borrows from a former President of the United States, Allied Forces Supreme Commander during World War II, Supreme Commander of NATO and all around badass, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Basically, you take your weekly to-do list, run it through an Effort/Impact scale, re-arrange based on priority and voilà! You can plug away at the lowest effort/highest impact items on Monday and feel like you’ve won the week in record time.
If you’re looking for a walkthrough, Brittni Bowering has a comprehensive article/video on the whole process. - Goal Mapping
This activity is a modification of the ‘Make a Map’ process typically done on the first day of a Design Sprint. You essentially choose a 3 month and/or 6 month goal, identify who can help you get there, and map some initial actions to get you where you want to go. Perfect for both personal and professional use, it’s a great way to find and adopt a mentor to keep you on track.
3. The Four Step Decision Maker
This process borrows from the ‘Four Step Sketch’ on Sketch Day. It’s very helpful if you have some sort of difficult decision to make and you’re not sure what to do.
- Write the problem that you’re struggling with down on paper.
- Do about 25–30 minutes of research to help give you some context. Write down or digitally capture what you discover.
- Circle the items that stand out. Begin drawing and/or writing some initial thoughts, ideas and comments.
- Narrow everything down to 1–3 items that summarize what you’ve learned and/or potential paths you could take. Circle the best two.
- Do a Crazy 8 session and iterate, using four panels for each of your circled choices.
- Craft a solution sketch that emulates an informed decision you would make, and the desired outcome.
- Execute, share or discuss with others.
Learn with a friend
There’s probably a good chance that you already know someone who’s familiar with design sprints, is interested like you are, or is already well versed in the methodology and has done a few engagements. No matter what your scenario, learning with a good friend can help you significantly climb that learning curve. Here are a couple of possibilities to explore:
- Co-facilitate
Design Sprint facilitators should never go it alone. Signing up to help out another facilitator with logistics, communications, supplies, process and even managing activities is a great way to get started and learn together. - User Interview Role Play
Most facilitators simply don’t know how to conduct proper user interviews. They suck at it. Leading the witness, nurturing apologists, employing confirmation bias and forgetting to establish rapport are the most frequent offenders for beginners.
It’s easily the biggest ‘elephant in the room’ of the design sprint process. If unchecked, it can easily kill days of hard work by event the best Sprint Team with terribly misleading, inaccurate user interviews.
Role playing a user interview is a great way to get some practice in. You and a friend can take turns interviewing each other about nearly anything, and you can practice common techniques like:
- The ‘Think Out Loud’ protocol
- The ‘What do you think?’ response to participant questions
- Rollback statements to clarify what you’ve understood.
- “Good Quotes” and “Sees, Says, Does” note taking techniques
Experiment with your team
Teams that are open to trying some design sprint techniques can be a gamble. You’ll be giving up some control of your learning journey to gain a level of trust with your colleagues. You’ll be getting a lot of perspective on the value and worth of the process from other people.
Here are a couple of team-related experiments that I’ve personally done that have really made a difference.
- Monthly Project Team LDJ’s
During the course of any given work week, a project team will have a myriad of things to get done. There’s never any time to take care of aspects that are plaguing employee morale, inefficient process and miscommunication amongst fellow teammates.
Monthly LDJ’s can help focus the team on group dynamics and what everyone needs to be happier at work. In 60 minutes, you can figure out what’s dragging the team down, come up with desirable solutions, map a plan of action and assign tasks to everyone involved. - Design Sprint Ideation Sessions
There’s always been a tendency to look at design as a black box of product development, especially with marketing agencies. You put in some requirements and user stories along with a bit of marketing and user research, and the award winning design just materializes out of thin air.
Whenever there’s been a siloed environment for design to work in, I’ve fallen back on using the Sprint’s ‘Four Step Sketch / The Sticky Decision’ playbook to being together a diverse group of people to come up with some interesting solutions, all in 90 minutes. Everyone involved gets to contribute their perspective and align around a particular path forward.
Get certified
This is usually a difficult decision to make. It’s not only an investment of time and money, but it’s a strong commitment to yourself and others that this is something you’re serious about. I personally wouldn’t think of venturing down this road until you’ve done at least 2–3 design sprints in the role of a lead facilitator.
However, if you really want to level up and bring the noise right out the gate, you have some excellent options.
- Design Sprint School
If you’re not familiar with Tenny Pinheiro, he pioneered the concept of Service Design Sprints in 2014. Since then, he’s been extending his expansive knowledge and approach through the Design Sprint School. Their online/in person workshops and training programs are fairly robust, with Switchup nominating them as one of the best bootcamps of 2019. - AJ&Smart’s Masterclass (Full disclosure, I’m a graduate)
I had been consuming AJ&Smart’s content for well over a year before going all-in. I wanted to sharpen up my techniques and approaches to the process, and their course did the trick. I usually recommend it for those that want content aligned with the original author of the Sprint Book. The humor is decent too. - Design Sprint Academy
If you’re someone that appreciates in-person training, Dana Vetan and John Vetan have one of the best programs out there at Design Sprint Academy. They have a long history of helping enterprise organizations incorporate design thinking and design sprints into their practices.
Present and share what you know
One of the worst things you can do is keep silent about what you’ve learned about design sprints, let alone the journey you took to get there.
If you’ve come this far, you probably have a point of view on your approach to the methodology, the execution you prefer, and the modifications you’ve done in your practice of the process. You should let people know about it.
- Leverage social media
We’re experiencing a moment in time where most people get information and entertainment from their mobile phones. Social media platforms are optimized for their audiences, and you’d do well to learn how to create content on them.
If you’re looking for a plan of action, I recommend Gary Vaynerchuk’s Content Model and his approach to pillar content. - Speak at local meetups and organizations
More and more design-centric meetups are popping up in the world, and a good portion of them cater to the design sprint process. If you’re looking to preach what your practice, promote your personal brand and work on your presentation skills, reach out to some organizers on a speaking engagement.
A great place to start is with student organizations that align with design, user experience and marketing. You may not have huge turnouts, but it’s a great place to get candid feedback on your message. - Apply to speak at a conference
Every year, design conference organizers wring their hands and deliberate over what type of content they need to provide their audiences. It has to be compelling enough to bring people to their event versus the myriad of other options they have for information theatre.
.
You can easily be part of that conversation, simply by applying to present your work, case study or critique of your profession. It’s really a no-lose situation, especially if you apply to several different events.
.
Worse case scenario: Your submission doesn’t get picked and you have don’t have to re-organize your life for a week.
.
Best case scenario: Your submission is selected, and you’re asked to speak and be part of a larger conversation about design sprints (and meet like minded practitioners in the process!)
It really comes down to taking baby steps. If you build upon something you have an interest in, you’ll start figuring out what you really like about it.
As the design sprint methodology continues to mature, it needs more conversation and perspective on where it’s headed and how relevant it’ll be in the future.
You should consider being part of that conversation.
There are a lot of us that really enjoy doing this work. I’m a 20+ year veteran of information architecture, usability, user experience, user research, development and project management. Design sprints are easily the most enjoyable and effective activity I’ve done in recent memory, and I’ll continue to advocate for their use going forward.
In fact, I’m putting on a global virtual design sprint in the month of April. That’s right, an entire month of remote design sprinting with some of the best practitioners and professionals on the planet. You can read more about it here.
Until then, if you need any help with anything related to design sprints, or have some questions about the process… reach out and start a conversation with me.
