Designer Spotlight: Running Sprints
Designer Spotlight features Filipino designers: their processes, inspirations, and experiences
Justine Win Canete is a Product Designer and Frontend Developer at Symph. She’s currently obsessed with Design Thinking and Human-centered Design. Facilitating Google Sprints and publishing stories are some of the things she enjoys doing.
What is Google Design Sprint?
Sprint is a 5-phase framework that aims to solve critical business problems through rapid prototyping and user testing. Its methodologies are adapted mostly from design agencies IDEO and Design School of Stanford.
To what kind of projects and/or situations is Sprint most applicable?
Great question.
- High Stakes: This is when you’re about to spend millions 🤑 to manufacture or develop a product. Sprint can help you validate whether customers are willing to purchase it or not.
- Not Enough Time: This is when you only have 4–6 months to build a product. With limited time, Sprint can help you 1) Finalise the MVP’s minimal feature set, 2) Test a new feature’s usability, 3) Recreate user flow, or 4) Figure out the best way of implementing an idea.
- Just Plain Stuck: Forgot why you’re building the product in the first place? Lack of motivation? Ran out of ideas for new features? Sprint can reignite the dying flame.
How can I explain Sprint to a non-techie person?
If you’ve read the book, you would know that Sprint is somewhat a “recipe”.
Imagine that your solution is a rainbow cake. A set of instructions is necessary to make sure that the cake turns out as it should be: an edible colorful cake with vanilla filling.
The pastry chefs are your Sprint team, the ingredients are your materials, and the steps are your methodologies. After baking the rainbow cake, it’s now time to put it to a taste test! Will people love and buy it? Or throw it in the trash bin like what Gordon Ramsay usually does?
Clients don’t want to invest on running a Sprint, what can I do?
There’s nothing you can do. Just kidding.
Blocking 5 days off someone’s schedule is scary enough for busy people. What more selling something that’s alien to them?
How on earth will a 5-day workshop solve my business problem?
Try facilitating 2–3 Design Thinking exercises (Mapping, User Persona, Decision Matrix) during a Kickoff Meeting so they can get a feel of what it’s like. Once they see the importance of these methodologies, introduce Sprint and tell them stories of successful companies that have used it.
I’ve tried facilitating a 2-hour Sprint for busy stakeholders before. You might wanna give it a try.
Be careful though, as Sprint is not a go-to solution to all business problems. I highly recommend assessing the situation first and then decide whether it’s necessary or not.
If you were able to run one before, you can show them results highlighting how it helped solved problems that’s related to theirs.
Give 3 advices for designers who want to run their first Design Sprint
- You will suck at your first 3 Sprints but that’s the key to becoming a great facilitator. There will always be awkward moments that you can learn from.
- Get your Sprint team right. Assembling a solid team makes the Sprint fun and results great!
- Listen and document every thing through voice records, videos, and pictures. You’ll not only need this for summarizing, but also for creating case studies.
Want to run a Sprint for your project? Let us know.
👏 That ends the Spotlight. Please give us a round of applause if you find this article helpful 👏
