How teams worked through ideation using the four-step sketch
A method to find a perfect solution of a problem
The four-step sketch contains each of these important elements. You’ll start with twenty minutes to “boot up” by taking notes on the goals, opportunities, and inspiration you’ve collected around the room. Then you’ll have another twenty minutes to write down rough ideas.
Next, it’s time to limber up and explore alternative ideas with a rapid sketching exercise called Crazy 8s. And finally, you’ll take thirty minutes or more to draw your solution sketch — a single well-formed concept with all the details worked out.
1. Notes
This first step is super-easy. You and your team will walk around the room, look at the whiteboards, and take notes. These notes are a “greatest hits” from the past twenty-four hours of the sprint. They’re a way to refresh your memory before you commit to a solution.
- Copy down the long-term goal.
- Next, look at the map, the How Might We questions, and the notes from your Lightning Demos. Write down anything that looks useful.
Give your team twenty minutes to take notes. During this time, feel free to look up reference material on your laptop or phone. Sometimes people want to take a second look at something they saw in the morning’s Lightning Demos or research some specific details from their company’s own product or website. Whatever the purpose, this moment is a rare exception to the no-devices rule.
And don’t forget to reexamine old ideas. Remember, they’re often the strongest solutions of all.
- Now, Take another three minutes to review what you wrote down. Circle the notes that stand out. They’ll help you in the next step.
2. Ideas
Now that everyone has a pile of notes, it’s time to switch into idea mode. In this step, each person will jot down rough ideas, filling a sheet of paper with doodles, sample headlines, diagrams, stick figures doing stuff — anything that gives form to his or her thoughts.
Take twenty minutes for idea generation. When you’re finished, spend an extra three minutes to review and circle your favorite ideas. In the next step, you’ll refine those promising elements.
3. Crazy 8s
Crazy 8s is a fast-paced exercise. Each person takes his or her strongest ideas and rapidly sketches eight variations in eight minutes. Crazy 8s forces you to push past your first reasonable solutions and make them better, or at least consider alternatives.
How to start Crazy 8s exercise
- Each person begins Crazy 8s with a single sheet of letter-size paper.
- Fold the paper in half three times, so you have eight panels.
- Set a timer to sixty seconds. Hit “start” and begin sketching — you have sixty seconds per section, for a total of eight minutes to create eight miniature sketches.
- Go fast and be messy: As with the notes and ideas, Crazy 8s will not be shared with the team.
Take a favorite piece from your ideas sheet and ask yourself, “What would be another good way to do this?” Keep going until you can’t think of any more variations, then look back at your ideas sheet, choose a new idea, and start riffing on it instead.
4. Solution Sketch
Remember how we kept saying, “Don’t worry, nobody’s going to look at this”?
That time is over. The solution sketch is each person’s best idea, put down on
paper in detail. Each one is an opinionated hypothesis for how to solve the
challenge at hand. These sketches will be looked at — and judged! — by the rest of the team. They need to be detailed, thought-out, and easy to understand.
Each sketch will be a three-panel storyboard drawn on sticky notes, showing
what your customers see as they interact with your product or service. We like
this storyboard format because products and services are more like movies than snapshots. Customers don’t just appear in one freeze frame and then disappear in the next. Instead, they move through your solution like actors in a scene. Your solution has to move right along with them.
1. Make it self- explanatory
On Wednesday morning, you’ll post your sketch on the wall for everyone to see. It needs to explain itself. Think of this sketch as the first test for your idea. If no one can understand it in sketch form, it’s not likely to do any better when it’s polished.
2. Keep it anonymous
Don’t put your name on your sketch, and be sure that everyone uses the same paper and the same black pens. On Wednesday, when you evaluate everyone’s sketch, this anonymity will make it much easier to critique and choose the best ideas.
3. Ugly is okay
Your sketch does not have to be fancy (boxes, stick figures, and words are fine), but it does have to be detailed, thoughtful, and complete. Be as neat as you can, but don’t worry if you’re not much of an artist. However . . .
4. Words Matter
We’ve used sprints with startups in all kinds of industries. One surprising
constant: the importance of writing. Strong writing is especially necessary for
software and marketing, where words often make up most of the screen. But
choosing the right words is critical in every medium. So pay extra close attention to the writing in your sketch. Don’t use “lorem ipsum” or draw those squiggly lines that mean “text will go here.” That text will go a long way to explain your idea — so make it good and make it real!
5. Give it a catchy title
Since your name won’t be on your sketch, give it a title. Later, these titles will
help you keep track of the different solutions as you’re reviewing and choosing. They’re also a way to draw attention to the big idea in your solution sketch.
Okay, get your paper ready. Refer to your notes, ideas, and Crazy 8s. Then
uncap your pens, fasten your safety belts, and make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their fully upright and locked positions. Your solution sketches are ready for takeoff.
- Each person is responsible for creating one solution sketch.
- If a few folks get inspired and want to sketch more than one, that’s okay, but don’t overdo it.
- Each additional sketch means more work reviewing and narrowing down on Wednesday.
- Not only that, but we’ve noticed that the first batch tend to be the
strongest and there are diminishing returns beyond ten to twelve solution
sketches. - Thirty minutes should be enough time for everyone to finish one
sketch. - Once everybody is finished, put the solution sketches in a pile, but resist the urge to look at them.
- You’ll only see them for the first time once, and you should save those fresh eyes for Wednesday.
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