The Hitchiker’s guide to the design sprint
“FAIL fast” learning from mistakes and iterate would increase the chance of a business to succeed. But putting this into practice it’s trickier than it sounds, especially when it comes to get your hands dirty with digital product design: there are plenty of methodologies, theories and frameworks out there
I am Peter Jámbor, Innovation manager and Scrum Master @finastra labs (AKA 10x). Based on my 8+ years experience on the field of FinTech I can tell I have a great expertee in managing teams designing and developing various digital banking solutions
Launching a new product is hard
Just to get you in the focus let me sum up the basic steps of building a new product MVP-or as it might be more preferred MLP
How fast can this be ideally? At least 2–3 month 🧐. Waiting 2 or 3 months in the making of an MVP means you take all the assumptions and bias that come in the early design phase
This means when you get to the “Learn” phase and get enough feedback to fail you have spent tons of work hours on your idea therefore there is a high risk of having an emotional connection to what you have done already and pretend that your customers are not mature enough to understand your brilliant ideas… And of course Management is eager to see your results ASAP.
Is this ideal on a constantly changing and rapidly developing area of FinTech? I don’t think so…
Do you still remember my article’s really first phrase? “Fail fast” I consider myself a highly optimistic person so let me rephrase this to “Win fast”
Through this article I am going to show you the real power of a silver bullet
Design Sprint
The Design Sprint is a five-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers. This technique has been developed by Google Ventures
Let’s see the basic steps of this as well
WHAT? Are five days enough? Yes. If the long term goal and the target are clear you will get meaningful insights from the sprint.
Innovation initiatives can range from exploring an abstract problem space, to experimenting with a number of solutions, before continuously improving a very concrete solution in a specific market space
We at Finastra Labs are dedicated to drive Co-Innovation sessions with clients from different areas. We have run several design sprints already. Using it to improve existing products, and also to develop new ideas from the very ground
In order to get you connected with the sprint processes, let’s see a challenge that we have solved recently
How might we support a better understanding of individual’s financial health then give instant advice and improvement actions?
In order to solve this we have formed a team of 8 of professionals of UX-UI Developer, management. As roles are defined we have dedicated an innovation manager as decider and I myself was the lucky one to facilitate this 5 day workshop.
Don’t worry I am not going deep in the details, but you will have the essence for sure…
Rock and Roll
Monday — as process steps show — you must have a common understanding of the goal and the main problems. For this you need to have continuous discussion about
- Who are the users?
- What are their needs?
- What is the context?
- Review competitors
- Formulate strategy
Expert interviews are also essential part of this specific day. By the end of the day you will have a list of questions you want to answer, a great map of the whole flow you want to solve and a decision about the most important parts
Tuesday you will use everything what you have learnt so far. Prepare yourself to
- envision
- develop lots of different solutions
- ideate and sketch
This is a really exiting day. You have the linghtning demos when you reveiew all connecting ideas on the market and you draw. Yes you draw 😍
If you do a great job by the end of the day you will have 6–8 different solutions sketched on paper that include every ideas hanging around on sticky notes.
Wednesday based on what you did the decider will be able to define the main pain points, highlight all the best ideas you as a team made and give a primary focus on what you
There is a big thing coming from this point. you will need to build a storyboard
In a Storyboard, you map out each step of the experience that you want to test. This helps clarify the pieces you need to Prototype. This ensures that everyone on the team is unified on what the idea is, and helps the group make critical decisions during the prototyping process. Often at this point the team will start brainstorming on many aspects of the product and some might be outside the scope of your sprint challenge and your Prototype. You can capture these ideas for later but keep the team focused on exactly what needs to be built for successful user testing.
Thursday you will have even more fun. This day is all about making the prototype. You can choose any tool that fits your needs, depending on what you are creating.
Just to have a few examples you might use
- Marvel
- InVision
- Keynote
- Keynotopia
- Axure
It really depends on you preferences but keep in mind that you need to
- build something quick and dirty to show users
- focus on usability not making it beautiful
Friday you are done. Well not exactly😏 On this day you do validate your ideas. No matter if you “Fail” or you “Win” after-all the main point here that it is going to be fast… You will collect great actionable insights according to your concept. This way or another you can be really proud of the design team for delivering
Respect every single feedback they will be a valuable input for your further developments.
Keep in mind everything can be tested. No matter if it is a piece of software or some hardware even service. This is crucial. You can test the product on the users with only empty box as well and you can retrieve the information you are looking for, without building the actual product.
As a reference here are some screens of what we have achieved as a prototype for our challenge 😇
Feel like you are up to make a sprint?
Having been a facilitator let me highlight some of Jake Knapp’s Facilitator’s handbook based on my experience
- Trust the recipe
My biggest trick to facilitation is to follow the design sprint process, and in situations where I’ve had to run other meetings, I like to come up with a process and schedule in advance.
2. Get commitment in advance or don’t do the sprint
People coming and going to other meetings will ruin the sprint (unless you have carefully planned for cameo appearances, more about that in the book) and it is painful and hard to stop once it starts, so get commitment in advance for people to be in the room 10–5 or don’t do the sprint at all.
3. Don’t outsmart anybody
It’s not on you to be the smartest person in the room. If you think it is, you’re creating unnecessary pressure and you might make a fool of yourself. The facilitator is there to make sure the sprint happens, and to provide the framework so everyone else can succeed. You don’t have to solve the problem or have a brilliant insight. You’re not the actor or even the director, you’re more like the producer.
4. Be energetic
You don’t have to go crazy with this, but you’re the battery for the sprint. If you are low energy, the group will be low energy, and if you are upbeat and positive, the group will be energized.
5. Seriously, enforce “no devices”
Don’t let people use their phones or laptops. It’s totally uncomfortable to do this, but you have to do it. Ask them to take their call or email or whatever outside. Say “I have to ask you to check that out of the room, because the screen makes it hard for everyone else to focus. But it’s totally fine for you to duck out and come back.” Everyone else will silently thank you, and you’ll build respect. But regardless of respect, you seriously have to keep devices out of the sprint or things will go bad.
6. Always on time, even when you’re not
Don’t worry if you get behind schedule a little — I frequently do, and it’s quite possible to catch up again. But don’t broadcast to the team that you’re behind. In fact, although you should use the time guidelines in the book to help you with the schedule, I recommend not writing those times on the whiteboard or sharing them with the team. If you’re behind, they don’t need to know that, because again, you’ll catch up. And it’s easier to catch up when the team has confidence in you.
7. Blame the book
If you do have to rush people along, or if something seems weird, feel free to blame the process, the book, and/or me. It’s not you who says devices aren’t allowed, it’s that jerk Jake. It’s not you who says we have to do Crazy 8s, it’s the book, but let’s give it a shot.
8. Enjoy it
Running a design sprint is hard work, no question about it. But it should also be fun. To me, it’s the absolute best of work: a challenging problem, focused time, a team of people working together and bringing their best, disagreeing constructively, and making progress. In your life, there will only be a certain number of moments like this — savor it.
One more thing: Keep in mind that you don’t have to be perfect for the sprint to work. Your map doesn’t have to be perfect , you don’t have to explain everything perfectly, and you don’t even need to remember these tips. The process is extremely robust and can handle lots of imperfections and still work out. Just ask questions, write stuff down, and mind the clock. ⚡️
If you have questions or tips of your own, please share them in the comments below. Thanks!
