How 2 days of upfront investment can save you months of pain
Top 3 benefits of running a 2-day Design Sprint Bootcamp
How many times have I seen this? A product team gets the go ahead to redesign a product. Full steam ahead. Everyone is jumping straight into planning and production mode — only to find themselves just a few weeks down the line with a nightmare of a project. Why? Because the team wasn’t aligned.
Just think about what happens if your car’s wheels are misaligned:
- difficult to steer
- premature wear and tear
- higher fuel consumption
- undue stress on suspension
- risk of damage
- expensive repair
And this metaphor applies surprisingly well to teams:
Like wheels, if people aren’t pulling in the same direction, bad things happen.
One way we have found works well to align teams is to run a Design Sprint, the 5-day process made famous by Google Ventures that feels a bit like design thinking on steroids.
However a design sprint has quite a bit more scope than alignment and many teams, especially decision makers, are hard pressed for time and find it difficult to commit themselves for an entire week. So we have stripped out all the extra stuff from the 5-day sprint and compressed it into a 2-day Bootcamp focused on optimally kicking off a project.
Here are three reasons why every team should invest in a 2-day Design Sprint Bootcamp when it’s still early days of defining a new product or service:
1. Alignment around prototypes rather than abstract concepts.
Let’s do a little exercise: Take a second and imagine a garden fence. What does it look like? What is it made of? How high is it?
If you ask a group of 5 people to describe their version of a garden fence, you will most likely end up with 5 different answers ranging from a wooden fence to green wire mesh to a concrete wall with bits of glass poking out at the top.
Now imagine what happens if we’re not just talking about garden fences but about slightly more complex things like products or features?
We assume we all have the same images, the same understanding in our heads. We don’t. And how could we? After all everyone brings a backpack full of different experiences, values and goals to the table, including a whole bunch of biases.
Having said that, this is actually a good thing. In order to tackle a challenge from different angles you need different perspectives. Ideally in one room. The challenge however is for everyone to have a common understanding of the why, the how and the what.
How do we achieve this?
Get real.
Stop talking, start making. The Design Sprint helps to eliminate endless discussions about abstract concepts and ideas by getting everyone involved in prototyping.
Prototypes help the team to
- get aligned
- move away from bike-shed discussions
- focus on the right problems to solve
- learn through experimentation
- reduce risk
During the Design Sprint Bootcamp we tend to work with low-fidelity paper prototypes. They are quick and easy to do and work fine for getting initial feedback to learn and improve upon.
Having everyone on the team building prototypes has following advantages:
- It’s quick
- It transforms abstract ideas into tangible, testable artefacts
- It creates a mindset of experimentation
- It empowers people and reduces dependencies (no need for programming, everyone can mock up a screen on paper)
- It becomes everyone’s responsibility to create great products (not just the UX designer’s)
- Everyone is committed
2. Get passionate
Working together with great intensity over two days creates better bonds than any classical team building.
It is intense
I’m not kidding when I say “intense”. The 5-day Sprint version is intense enough, but the 2-day Bootcamp borders on insanity. And definitely pushes everyone out of their comfort zone.
Going through these challenges together as a team not only breaks down any barriers or misconceptions that might have been there but, more importantly, creates passion and momentum.
It is focused
When was the last time you could work without any interruptions for an extended period of time? No calls, no emails, no meetings, no self-interruptions?
Unless you already have an amazing work culture set up, my guess is you can’t remember. Maybe you have created your own workarounds by either arriving in the office very early before anyone else or by staying in late at night.
The beauty of the Design Sprint is that it’s an uninterrupted chunk of time where the entire team is present — physically and mentally.
The progress you make is immense!
3. Embed the right approach from the get-go
A Design Sprint helps teams to get started with the right approach so they continue that way:
- Defining the “why”
- Identifying and understanding a problem worth solving
- Prototyping solutions
- Testing with real users
- Continuously improving based on learning
From a management or product owner point of view, Design Sprints enable people to
- work with each other, not against each other
- think and operate independently, eliminating the need to micromanage
- ultimately build better products
So… Two days or five?
Start with the 2-day Design Sprint Bootcamp if …
- you are at the early stage of defining a new product or service
- you want to set the direction on a new project
- you want to introduce a new way of working
The team is set up for success by creating alignment on shared project goals and parameters, generating ideas and concepts as well as building and testing low-fidelity prototypes.
Run a 5-day Design Sprint if…
- you already have a solution or a more clearly defined idea
and…
- you quickly want to find out if a new feature is worth building
- you want to validate the value proposition for potential customers
- the stakes are high
The outcome is a user-tested high-fidelity prototype of the product as well as a highly motivated and engaged team who will have achieved more in a short time than many would have thought possible.
In both cases the Design Sprint is a repeatable design process and equips participants with a set of tangible skills to incorporate into their everyday work.
Happy sprinting!
Thinking of running 2- or 5-day a design sprint? Get in touch
