10 Examples To Know When You Should Run A Design Sprint
Design Sprints are definitely on the rise when it comes to popularity 📈
The efficiency of these 5-days intense sessions has been proved, and Design Sprints have been applied to multiple scenarios.
However, you might wonder: When should I run a Design Sprint?
In this article, we’ll cover the 10 most common situations where you should run a Design Sprint.
1️⃣ When you/your team need to align on a specific topic
Sometimes, teams lose focus.
It’s normal. With the hassle of the everyday working life, focus on what’s truly important might disappear. By running a Design Sprint, getting your team together, and having to work on one specific task or project, can improve its alignment considerably and also nurture a more energetic and entrepreneurial attitude.
Losing focus? Get your team sprintin’!
2️⃣ When the problem requires a cross-functional team to solve it
Large and medium corporations know it’s hard to get everyone on the same boat. Lots of people need lots of effort to manage.
By running a Design Sprint and gather around people from different sectors of your company, you are straightening bonds and bringing people together, leading to increased synergies and cooperation inside your organization afterward!
Team spirit rocks, and getting brains with different skills thinking collectively can really get the motor running.
3️⃣ Take care of a recurring problem that takes too long to solve in the day-to-day
We all know those problems that never get fixed.
Days, weeks, and even months go by, and things stay the same, mostly because the problem takes too much time to get fixed.
The best way to solve this? You guessed it — run a Sprint! By taking your team and getting them together, thinking collectively about how to improve something, you’ll fix all your major (and minor!) problems in no time!
Consider running a Design Sprint if there are problems that you haven’t been able to fix for a long time.
4️⃣ Improve a product or a part of a product
Design Sprints are not limited to creating new products.
These sessions can also be used to improve on certain parts of an existing product that your company owns.
Let’s say, for example, that you noticed that a product you develop is underperforming on the Asian market. You could use a Design Sprint to improve the reach you get with your product in that market, running testing with users from that specific location!
Early product or a long-established necessity, it doesn’t matter — the Design Sprint suits them all!
5️⃣ Before a product is created
This is probably one of the most common applications.
Running a Design Sprint is a great way to get your ideas flowing and put your team working on creating a prototype for your product that has excellent features, incorporates user research and — even better — gets immediate feedback!
6️⃣ You have a really, really big problem.
5 days of your time, an ENTIRE WEEK, might sound like a lengthy endeavor.
However, if you have a huge problem, that is dragging your growth down or might bite you in the face in the future, 5 days doesn’t sound that long right?
Really do consider running a Sprint if you have a significant problem to solve, as those 5 days are precious and will help get your company past those issues.
7️⃣ When you have a too vague problem
This is for when you are faced with a problem, but don’t have a clear idea of what it is about.
A Sprint can help gather more information about the issue and get people focused on solving it, generating tons of ideas while doing it. In the end, you’ll leave with a much better idea of what the problem is all about and how you can start fixing it.
8️⃣ When there isn’t an obvious solution to the problem
There are situations where you might have a problem, but there are no clear solutions to that problem.
Everyone has their idea, but all of them are great! In these cases, it’s hard to decide on what to do next. If you run a Design Sprint, you can sort out ideas and get a more detailed look at why a particular solution is or isn’t right.
9️⃣ Pitching an idea to a team or a stakeholder
It’s also a good idea to run a Design Sprint when you are trying to pitch an idea to investors.
For example, if you own a startup, using a Design Sprint to showcase your idea to potential investors in a practical way is a good idea, as it is a captivating way of presenting something — I mean, does anyone enjoy powerpoints and PDFs?
The same can also be applied to Project Managers trying to present an idea for a project to stakeholders inside a company — super original way to present something!
In general, presenting an idea by using a Design Sprint is excellent — you are showing, not telling.
🔟 When it’s a high stakes situation
Sometimes, we have to take decisions that might have a significant impact on the company, drastically changing its future for the better or, the worse.
Design Sprints are especially useful when there’s a big decision to be made. It gives you security and guarantees to make a final call, due to its user testing and intense experimentation.
Additionally, if it’s a regular decision, that doesn’t carry many risks, then a Design Sprint is not optimal. You are taking 5 days of your time to get little rewards. High stakes? Then yes, those 40 hours are really worth it.
Design Sprints have a multitude of uses and can bring change, energy, and benefits to your organization. We hope that, with this article, you are better able to identify if you need to run a Sprint.
You can check out our other articles on Design Sprints here:
Once again — thank you for reading!
Ricardo is the CEO of PICUS. Obsessed with becoming “Design Sprint Go-to-Guy” in Portugal. He organizes meetups at his hometown, occasional speaker, and overall a tech enthusiast. Follow him on LinkedIn or Instagram!
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