Hackathon-like rapid prototyping and testing
A
design sprint
is a time-constrained, five-phase process that uses
design thinking
with the aim of reducing the risk when bringing a new product, service or a feature to the market. The process aims to help teams to clearly define goals, validate assumptions and decide on a product roadmap before starting development.
[1]
It seeks to address
strategic issues
using interdisciplinary expertise, rapid
prototyping
, and
usability testing
. This design process is similar to
Sprints
in an
Agile
development cycle.
[2]
How it started
[
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There are multiple origins to the concept of mixing
Agile
and
Design Thinking
.
The most popular was developed by a multi-disciplinary team working out of Google Ventures. The initial iterations of the approach were created by Jake Knapp, and popularised by a series of blog articles outlining the approach and reporting on its successes within Google. As it gained industry recognition, the approach was further refined and added to by other Google staff including Braden Kowitz, Michael Margolis, John Zeratsky and Daniel Burka.
[3]
[4]
It was later published in a book published by Google Ventures called
"Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days"
.
.
Possible uses
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Claimed uses of the approach include
- Launching a new product or a
service
.
- Extending an existing experience to a new platform.
- Existing
MVP
needing revised
User experience design
and/or
UI Design
.
- Adding new features and functionality to a digital product.
- Opportunities for improvement of a product (e.g. a high rate of
cart abandonment
[5]
)
- Opportunities for improvement of a service.
[6]
- Supporting organizations in their transformation towards new technologies (e.g., AI).
[7]
Phases
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The creators of the design sprint approach, recommend preparation by picking the proper team, environment, materials and tools working with six key 'ingredients'.
[8]
- Understand:
Discover the business opportunity, the audience, the competition, the value proposition, and define
metrics of success
.
- Diverge:
Explore, develop and iterate creative ways of solving the problem, regardless of feasibility.
- Converge:
Identify ideas that fit the next product cycle and explore them in further detail through storyboarding.
- Prototype:
Design and prepare prototype(s) that can be tested with people.
- Test:
Conduct 1:1
usability testing
with 5-6 people from the product's primary
target audience
. Ask good questions.
[9]
Deliverables
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The main deliverables after the Design sprint:
- Answers to a set of vital questions
- Findings from the sprint (notes,
user journey maps
, storyboards, information architecture diagrams, etc.)
- Prototypes
- Report from the usability testing with the findings (backed by testing videos)
- A plan for next steps
- Validate or invalidate hypotheses before committing resources to build the solution
Team
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]
The suggested ideal number of people involved in the sprint is 4-7 people and they include
the facilitator
,
designer
, a decision maker (often a
CEO
if the company is a
startup
),
product manager
,
engineer
and someone from companies core business departments (Marketing, Content, Operations, etc.).
Variants
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The
concept sprint
is a fast five-day process for cross-functional teams to brainstorm, define, and model new approaches to business issue.
[10]
[11]
Another common variant is the
Service Design Sprint
, an approach to Design Sprints created in 2014 that uses
Service Design
tools and mechanics to tackle service innovation.
References
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