D_esign Sprints_ can generate remarkable output for your company — such as a backlog of impactful ideas, functional prototypes, learnings and key insights from customers along with real business opportunities. : your company needs to solve a major real-world problem — you need a novel solution, better than any other offering available in the market; you could be aiming for a , , , or a . Consider this situation product a component a system a service process In an ideal scenario, before making any investments, you would need the set of candidate solutions, prototyped and exposed to . This would enable enough and to make informed decisions and setup a better product development strategy. a controlled set of real users signals insights To get there — from a to enriched with — you can follow standard paths, for example you can consult the experts in your organization, assign work-streams to different teams, coordinate the work, schedule brainstorming meetings, and wait in the queue to get UI designs and then to develop prototypes — a lengthy process with several drawbacks, dependencies, issues and risks. , with a clear goal: , each enriched with feedback from real users. problem functional prototypes customer feedback Or, you can setup a and ‘lock’ it in a room for a few days powerful multidisciplinary team a shortlist of inexpensive, realistic prototypes of selected high-potential concepts A to your problem and from real users on how they are. rapid innovation process outputting potential solutions evidence effective This intense comes in several forms and variations — a popular one being the ‘Design Sprint’, which promises ‘Solutions to big problems in just five days’. It uses ‘design thinking’ principles and introduces several techniques, tools and rules. ideation and prototyping process The success factors To get real value from a Design Sprint, you must emphasize on , and — or you may end up hosting an expensive multi-day brainstorming session outputting just . Having joined a large number of ‘ideation and prototyping’ sessions along with 10’s of formal ‘Design Sprints’, I would summarize the critical aspects and success factors in the following. the right setup preparation readiness noise 1. Define the problem statement ! Most of the Design Sprints and prototyping sessions I have experienced so far, share this specific single point of failure: a poorly defined problem statement, which triggers time-consuming discussions, iterations and unnecessary regression — setting the entire process at risk. In contrast, the Design Sprints that started with clarity on the problem to be solved, moved on rapidly towards impressive solutions and prototypes. Don’t let the problem statement become your real problem unsuccessful The Design Sprints that started with clarity on the problem to be solved, moved on rapidly towards impressive solutions and prototypes. Although the first day of the Design Sprint is usually about framing and re-framing the problem statement, I am convinced that having a good is key for a successful outcome. You can always revise it and reset it as necessary during the first day, but a solid basis can make the difference. In any case, the team needs to be to understand the problem and to consider different angles and unconventional approaches. problem definition upfront open ready There are several templates and methods to help you construct problem statement — in general you need to describe the vs the and the for the . a valid current situation ideal state related implications involved users 2. Set up the right team The synthesis of the team sets the foundation for the entire Design Sprint — you need and along with and — all combined in a small multidisciplinary team with : a team willing to , , assumptions, but also be and purpose-driven. diversity of thought, skills perspectives expertise creativeness the right culture share collaborate challenge think big pragmatic The in the team (for instance, members do not express their ideas, in fear of getting criticized by more senior members in the team) or a (add more than 6–7 people and you’ll get additional problems to solve) or the (people tend to protect ideas versus sharing, or believe that they know the right solution, upfront) could introduce serious risks to the process. wrong dynamics large team wrong mindset The members of the team must ‘forget’ about , and ; they need to be , new perspectives and different views; they need to be ready to and ; to minimize the impact of bias and work together towards a shared mission — . seniority hierarchy authority open to new ideas influence get influenced a great solution to a challenging problem Physical space is also very important to allow the team to focus, express random thoughts and ideas, collaborate and quickly visualize concepts. You need a room with enough space, the right equipment and office supplies– such as writable walls, whiteboards and well, plenty of sticky notes. 3. Make sure the team is well-prepared . The key to success, is to have a well-prepared team. Even if your dream team consists of domain experts and senior business leaders, they all have to put some extra effort to get prepared — so they fully understand the problem and its wider context, the technology, the competition and the relevant global trends. Make sure that you clearly communicate to the team, not only the context and the problem to be solved, but also the and the . Design Sprints are demanding — fast and intense rules need to get prepared 4. Focus on ideation Assuming that a solid problem statement and the right preparation is there, the next most important element is . While the Design Sprint process provides some tools to empower ideation, I would strongly recommend to and — with more detailed descriptions. ideation [a] increase the time allocated to idea generation, sketching and pitching [b] capture the ideas in digital format — one of the most important outputs of the sprint and the key input to the prototyping phase. Ideas should not be left on sticky notes — even the non-selected ones could prove to be relevant and valuable in the future. A backlog of ideas is a great asset This is why you need to feed the ideas generated in the Sprint into and make them by the right audiences. a centralized ideation system discoverable 5. Get ready for ‘rapid prototyping’ Delivering realistic prototypes is a critical part of this process — since they will be used to capture user/ customer feedback. You don’t want your great concept to receive negative feedback due to a poor prototype implementation — that could mislead related decisions and undermine the overall value of the Design Sprint. Your team must be capable of — able to build realistic user experiences in just a couple of days or less. real rapid prototyping . For instance, to speed up the process you need to leverage any you have, , / , and services. You will also need systems, tools and processes — for instance and DevOps capabilities. Rapid Prototyping requires the right resources in the team along with a general technological readiness reusable software components standardized datasets artificial static data UI elements, APIs, models wireframing, software development environments Availability of special equipment might be important, for example, if is involved a 3D printer might be of real value; or if you expect Augmented Reality prototypes, you will need access to related devices — along with any templates, APIs and documentation. physical prototyping 6. Find a great Facilitator This is a key role — in fact, . The facilitator must maintain the right , , and to lead the team towards a clear, shared goal: and a great, solving the problem for . I see the facilitator as the real protagonist of the Design Sprint pace direction energy levels interaction patterns, define prototype novel concept real users It is a difficult profile to find — you need somebody mastering the process itself, but also having deep understanding of the problem and the particular business context. The facilitator must be capable of ‘reading’ the characters in the room and take necessary action to make sure that all voices are heard and considered. 7. Capture everything Design Sprints are typically very ‘noisy’ with tons of sticky notes, ideas and stories on the walls — all these, in-between discussions, arguments, decisions and random thoughts. And yes, this ‘controlled chaos’ is exciting, but unless you have a dedicated person responsible for taking (digital) notes, you will end up frustrated, trying to decode colorful sticky notes and ‘reverse-engineer’ random drawings. To make the most of the thoughts and ideas, you need to capture them in a modern way — so they are discoverable and potentially usable. 8. Find a Leader, not just a ‘decider’ I find the proposed decision-making process — with the super voting concept and the sticky votes on the sketches — oversimplified and very sensitive to team dynamics and the overall state of the team. Moreover, given the extra power, the decider must demonstrate deep understanding of the concepts, the ability to and You need a real leader there not — an ‘authority’ or ‘political’ person. think strategically communicate with clarity. The facilitator and the team should feel free to challenge whatever decisions made by the decider, by asking for — the business or technical reasoning. justification 9. Measure Success — consider the associated direct and indirect costs of having x members full-time for z days. Thus, measuring the success of the Design Sprint itself is important. In the case of an ‘isolated’ sprint, success can be measured by processing direct feedback, outputs and mid-term outcomes — for example business opportunities and success stories linked with the deliverables of the Sprint. A design sprint is an expensive process If you are running , you need a framework to capture and quantify Sprint outputs and impact — a flow towards a centralized ideas and knowledge repository. This data store, should enable full tracking of the real business opportunities and financial gains associated with each of your Design Sprints — while specialized KPIs allow tracking the success of the overall . The key question in this case is regarding — to be covered in a forthcoming article. successive Design Sprints innovation programme the baseline to compare this ‘quantified innovation output’ against — D_esign Sprints_ can generate remarkable output for your company — such as a backlog of impactful ideas (also with IP opportunities), functional prototypes, learnings and key insights from customers along with real business opportunities. At the same time, assuming proper and frequent execution, Design Sprints can lead to significant . cultural improvements towards the ‘innovation mode’ Check also: How to lead innovation and drive change in engineering teams Photo by Will H McMahan on Unsplash

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Innovation at pace: Rapid Prototyping practices for Software Engineering teams

How to run a successful Design Sprint

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