![Design Sprints](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Design_Sprints.png)
A design sprint is a time-constrained, five-phase process that uses
design thinking
Design thinking refers to the set of Cognition, cognitive, strategic and practical procedures used by designers in the process of Design, designing, and to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with des ...
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. It seeks to address
strategic issues using interdisciplinary expertise, rapid
prototyping
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally used to ...
, and
usability testing
Usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system. It is m ...
. This design process is similar to
Sprint
Sprint may refer to:
Aerospace
*Spring WS202 Sprint, a Canadian aircraft design
*Sprint (missile), an anti-ballistic missile
Automotive and motorcycle
*Alfa Romeo Sprint, automobile produced by Alfa Romeo between 1976 and 1989
*Chevrolet Sprint, ...
s in an
Agile development cycle.
How it started
There are multiple origins to the concept of mixing
Agile and
Design Thinking
Design thinking refers to the set of Cognition, cognitive, strategic and practical procedures used by designers in the process of Design, designing, and to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with des ...
.
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 Burkareal.
It was later published in a book published by Google Ventures called .
Possible uses
Claimed uses of the approach include
* Launching a new product or a
service
Service may refer to:
Activities
* Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty
* Civil service, the body of employees of a government
* Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a pu ...
.
* Extending an existing experience to a new platform.
* Existing
MVP
In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...
needing revised
User experience design
User experience design (UX design, UXD, UED, or XD) is the process of defining the experience a user would go through when interacting with a digital product or website. Design decisions in UX design are often driven by research, data analysis, an ...
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)
* Opportunities for improvement of a service.
* Supporting organizations in their transformation towards new technologies (e.g., AI).
Phases
![Design Sprint Workshop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Design_Sprint_Workshop.jpg)
The creators of the design sprint approach, recommend preparation by picking the proper team, environment, materials and tools working with six key 'ingredients'.
# 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
Usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system. It is m ...
with 5-6 people from the product's primary
target audience
A target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to said intended audience. In marketing and advertising, it is a particular group of consumer within the predetermined ...
. Ask good questions.
Deliverables
The main deliverables after the Design sprint:
* Answers to a set of vital questions
* Findings from the sprint (notes,
user journey maps
Ancient Egyptian roles
* User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty
* Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User"
Other uses
* User (computing), a person (or software) using an ...
, 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
The suggested ideal number of people involved in the sprint is 4-7 people and they include
the facilitator,
designer
A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans.
In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...
, a decision maker (often a
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
if the company is a
startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
),
product manager
A product manager (PM) is a professional role that is responsible for the development of products for an organization, known as the practice of product management. Product managers own the product strategy behind a product (physical or digital), ...
,
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
and someone from companies core business departments (Marketing, Content, Operations, etc.).
Variants
The concept sprint is a fast five-day process for cross-functional teams to brainstorm, define, and model new approaches to business issue.
Another common variant is the
Service Design Sprint, an approach to Design Sprints created in 2014 that uses
Service Design
Service design is the activity of planning and arranging people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its quality, and the interaction between the service provider and its users. Service design may ...
tools and mechanics to tackle service innovation.
References
{{Design
Design
Software development process
Agile software development