This article describes our top 3 essentials to ensure a successful Design Sprint. 

First, establish the problem prior to the Design Sprint

This may seem like an obvious statement. You’d be surprised how often this is missed. When reading the book and researching it is easy to make the mistake of assuming that Monday is where the Design Sprint process begins. The reality is that there is quite a bit of work done in advance to prepare.

You want to ensure going into the Design Sprint that everyone has an understanding of the problem/problem area, how it relates to the product/service and ladders back to the business. In most cases you would have been approached to help with a specific issue, in which case spend time up front to validate it. 

At More Space this is achieved through Problem Framing. Problem Framing aligns the business on the strategic priority. The result consolidates thinking into Challenge Statements defining —

• What the problem is ..?
• Who it impacts ..?
• Where it occurs ..?
• What needs to change ..?
• Why it will add value to the recipient ..?
• How it will impact the business and why it should care ..?

Problem Framing will also seed the conversation of logistics in regards to who needs to be involved, internal/external stakeholders and customers. Some practical tips:

• Conduct internal stakeholder interviews. These don’t have to be formal. Grab a coffee and have a chat.
• Often it is hard for people to comprehend the impact of change and how it can benefit the business. Get your team together (including at least one decision maker, preferably the person that is going to sign-off on the Design Sprint) then challenge the team to list the implications of not making a change and continuing down your existing path. You’ll soon get a reading of the appetite for change by the response of the room.
• Flip this now. Everyone is primed and hopefully hasn’t sunk into a pit of despair! Ask what an ideal future looks like, 1 year, then 5 years from now. Try and keep people grounded and relate it back to the context of the problem you are intending to unpack.
• With this information you’ll be ready to vote and make a decision to take into the Design Sprint. We recommend the following activities, Affinity Mapping followed by Dot Voting.

 

Next, assembling the right team

Just as you need to clarify the problem, you also need to ensure you assemble a great Design Sprint Team. It is not unusual for cross-functional teams to sit in silos, whether in the same building or different time zones. The only time they may communicate could be via a JIRA ticketing board!

Once you get the right balance of people in the room (real or remote) you will be able to unlock insights that may not have been considered before. Also, when it comes to ideation you want the team to feel emotionally invested in the challenge. Having an engaged team will ensure buy-in to the creative process and each participant will want to influence the final outcome. This is evident by the joyous scratching sound of pencil to paper during solution sketches.

The reality is that more often than not people will assume many hats in their role, especially a startup. With this in mind we’ve made recommendations for the type of expertise to include in your Design Sprint team:

• The Decision Maker — they can be the CEO, MD, Product Manager; the higher in rank the better. They generally control the purse strings, and would have signed off on the Design Sprint. They are critical to ensure company buy-in and endorsement beyond the program. A tip, getting them active during the week will draw everybody in, for example, ask them to sketch during the Lightning Demos exercise.
• The customer expert — they are on the frontline. They have constant contact with customers whether through sales or support. They will also shoot-down all the B/S and remind you who your customers are and their challenges. Consider that sales and support will offer different perspectives.
• An engineer — they will spend much of the early stages of the week grumbling because there is too much talking and not enough doing. They will be a marker for feasibility and once in the swing of things, confirm what is possible.
• A creative — in many cases they are responsible for designing the experience. The magic they provide is invaluable. They will be eager to participate and provide inspiration. They will also benefit from getting feedback from test subjects on the final day.
• A marketing expert — these are the people that represent the voice of the organisation. They will understand the brand personality and remind the group what is on and off brand.
• A Facilitator — they are the conductor, they have to control the room and set the pace. They must also have enough confidence to lead, and humility to listen. We are strong proponents of using an external Facilitator. Whether they are external to the team, or from another company. You want to be supported, not led to a solution.
• External stakeholders — we’ve found that bringing in external stakeholders from the Sprint Team to sense-check during the early stage of production will provide an opportunity for early feedback before people become wedded to a solution. It also allows more people in the business to have a vested interest in the project.

 

Finally, identify your target customer(s)

During the Design Sprint when the team starts focusing on customers, things can stall. Often this exercise could be the first time that some of the members of the team have been tasked with profiling their customers. To do this with no preparation in the space of 45 minutes is a challenge, even for seasoned professionals.

Our preferred option is to create customer profiles prior to the Design Sprint. Or if they already exist, select the relevant profiles based on the product/service. Then familiarise the team with the selected profiles prior starting the Design Sprint. A practical advantage of confirming target customers prior to the Design Sprint is that you can start finding appropriate test subjects for the Friday, as well as organising the most suitable SMEs to talk on the Monday. 

Once you have your customer profiles you can use Monday’s exercise to bring them to life. We use a process called Jobs To Be Done (JTBD). This was a revelation for us, as the results were astonishing. We got quicker buy-in from the team as they could immediately relate to the target customers. We could then facilitate conversations in the context of the problem space rather than worrying about whether Jill drove an SUV or Sedan! We apply the JTBD framework to profiles and reference these later on in the journey map exercise.

The JTBD framework we use to bring personas to life —

• When (situation) …

• I want to (motivation) …

• So I can (expected outcome) …

 

Wrapping up

To conclude we believe the 3 big ticket items to ensure a successful Design Sprint are:

1. Establish the problem prior to the Design Sprint.
2. Assemble the right team.
3. Identify your target customer(s).

By the end of the Design Sprint we are confident you’ll have alignment from each of the business units. Your business would have benefited from direct conversation with customers. Plus you’ll have something to show for your efforts that can be used to roadshow and build a business case around for further investment. Or even better you’ll find you have fast-tracked many weeks or months of discussing a project to get it off the ground.We hope this article helps to prepare you to conduct your next Design Sprint.

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More Space for Light is an Innovation and Strategy Consultancy. Our design-led approach to solving business problems helps leaders and teams overcome constraints related to product, service, or process. So you can quickly identify risks, gain alignment and focus for action. Our goal is to empower your teams to do their best work and set the prerequisites for success.

For more information about our design programs and training get in touch, start@morespacelight.com.au.