Design Sprint: Planning, Requirements, Overview.

Summary

Google's design sprint is a rapid, five-day process for solving critical business problems through design thinking. It involves understanding the problem, sketching solutions, deciding on a direction, prototyping, and validating with users. This method streamlines the design process, allowing teams to quickly iterate and gain valuable insights, potentially leading to efficient failures, flawed successes, or epic wins, and is adaptable for various product complexities.

Takeaways

• 🔍 Companies are hesitant to invest in large design projects without understanding their chances of success.
• 🏃‍♂️ Google Ventures has developed a 'design sprint' method to streamline the design process and provide valuable insights quickly.
• ⏱️ The design sprint process takes just five days, focusing on rapid design, prototyping, and user testing.
• 🤔 The sprint is based on design thinking and consists of five phases: Understand, Sketch, Decide, Prototype, and Validate.
• 📝 A successful sprint requires planning, including writing a brief, conducting user research, and assembling a diverse team.
• 👥 The ideal sprint team includes representatives from various functions and levels within the organization, and may also include external stakeholders.
• 📈 The Understand phase involves creating shared knowledge about the business problem and defining success metrics.
• ✏️ Sketch Day is an individual effort where team members brainstorm and sketch solutions on paper.
• 🗳️ Decide Day is about selecting the best ideas for prototyping, considering potential conflicts with objectives and abilities.
• 🛠️ Prototype Day involves creating a prototype that users can test, using familiar tools and involving the whole team.
• 📊 On the final day, the idea is validated through user testing, expert reviews, and team observations to decide if the design needs iterating or if it's ready for implementation.
• 🏆 The outcomes of a sprint can range from efficient failure (learning from mistakes), flawed success (partial wins), to an epic win (successful design).

Q & A

What is a design sprint?

A design sprint is a method developed by Google Ventures to quickly gain insights into critical business questions through rapid design, prototype development, and user testing, all within a short timeframe of five days.

How long does a design sprint take?

A design sprint is a five-phase process where each phase takes approximately one day or eight hours, allowing a sprint to be completed in five days.

What are the five phases of Google's design sprint?

The five phases of Google's design sprint are Understand, Sketch, Decide, Prototype, and Validate.

What is the purpose of the Understand phase?

The Understand phase aims to create shared knowledge about the business problem by bringing everyone together and unpacking all the team's knowledge about the problem.

What is a lightning talk and how does it fit into the Understand phase?

A lightning talk is a short presentation, typically 10–15 minutes, where knowledge experts share their insights about the problem. It is an important part of the Understand phase to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Why is it important to involve the whole team during the Understand phase?

Involving the whole team ensures everyone is on the same page and their insights are considered, preventing any individual or group from dominating the proceedings.

What is the main goal of Sketch Day?

The main goal of Sketch Day is to generate as many detailed solutions to the problem as possible, allowing everyone to contribute ideas through sketching.

What is Decide Day and what happens during this phase?

Decide Day is about making a decision on which idea to take to the Prototype phase. It also involves identifying conflicts with objectives and abilities, and creating storyboards for the chosen ideas.

How should a team approach Prototype Day?

On Prototype Day, the team has one day to create a prototype that users can test. They should use familiar tools for rapid prototyping and leverage the whole team's skills.

What is the focus of the Validate phase?

The Validate phase focuses on testing the prototype with end-users and observing their interactions. It also involves summarizing learnings and deciding if further iterations are needed.

What are the possible outcomes of a design sprint?

The possible outcomes of a design sprint are an efficient failure, a flawed success, or an epic win. Each outcome provides valuable insights for the team to learn from or build upon.

How does a design sprint help in the design process?

A design sprint helps by making the design process lean and efficient, allowing teams to ideate and test ideas incredibly fast, which can add significant business value.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Google's Design Sprint Method

Google has developed a design sprint method to streamline the design process and quickly gain insights into the potential success of big design projects. This method, developed by Google Ventures, is a five-phase process that lasts just five days, focusing on rapid design, prototype development, and user testing. Each phase takes approximately one day or eight hours. The phases are Understand, Sketch, Decide, Prototype, and Validate. The process is linear but encourages revisions and reiterations. To plan a successful design sprint, it's essential to write a brief, conduct user research, assemble a diverse team, secure a suitable space, gather necessary supplies, and choose an icebreaker exercise. The Understand phase aims to create shared knowledge about the business problem, involving the whole team in discussions and lightning talks to ensure everyone is aligned.

05:00

🎯 Executing the Design Sprint

The second paragraph delves into the execution of the design sprint. Sketch Day involves individual efforts to create detailed solutions, with the team splitting into manageable chunks if necessary. The aim is to generate as many ideas as possible. Decide Day focuses on selecting the best ideas for prototyping while considering potential conflicts with objectives and abilities. The team participates in discussions and voting to make decisions and creates storyboards to guide the prototyping process. Prototype Day is a single day to build a user-testable prototype using familiar tools and involving the entire team in various tasks. Validation on the final day involves user testing of the prototype, with the team observing user interactions. The sprint concludes with a reflection on the experience and the potential outcomes: efficient failure, flawed success, or an epic win. The design sprint is adapted from Agile methods and aims to make the design process lean and efficient, though it may require practice to maintain the five-day timeline.

Keywords

💡Design Sprint

A design sprint is a time-bound, five-phase process developed by Google Ventures for solving business problems quickly and efficiently. It is a method that allows teams to understand, sketch, decide, prototype, and validate ideas within just five days. The concept is integral to the video's theme, as it outlines how companies can achieve design goals swiftly. The script mentions, 'The process developed by Google Ventures is called a *design sprint*. It focuses on getting insights into critical business questions, within a very short timeframe – just five days.'

💡Design Thinking

Design thinking is a problem-solving approach that focuses on the needs of users and involves the rapid design and prototyping process. It is the foundation of the design sprint methodology. In the context of the video, design thinking is used to gain insights and solutions to business problems by encouraging creativity and user-centric solutions, as indicated by 'The process is based on design thinking.'

💡Understand

The 'Understand' phase is the first phase of a design sprint where the team creates shared knowledge about the business problem they are addressing. It sets the stage for the rest of the sprint by ensuring everyone has a clear understanding of the issue. The script describes this phase as aiming to 'unpack all of your team's knowledge about the problem.'

💡Sketch

In the 'Sketch' phase, team members individually develop detailed solutions to the problem, typically on paper. This phase is about brainstorming and generating as many ideas as possible, as mentioned in the script: 'Sketch Day is an individual effort. Everyone is tasked with coming up with a detailed solution to the problem.'

💡Decide

The 'Decide' phase is about making a decision on which idea to take forward to prototyping. It involves reviewing each idea, identifying conflicts, and refining the list to remove infeasible options. The script states, 'Decide Day is all about making a decision about which idea you're going to take to the Prototype Phase.'

💡Prototype

The 'Prototype' phase involves creating a prototype that users can test. This phase is about turning the chosen idea into a tangible product that can be interacted with. The script emphasizes this by saying, 'On Prototype Day you have a single day to create a prototype that your users can test on the final day.'

💡Validate

Validation is the final phase of the design sprint where the team tests the prototype with end-users to see if the idea works. It is crucial for determining the success of the sprint and gathering insights for future improvements. The script describes it as, 'On Day 5, you validate your idea. The most important part of the validation is to bring in a group of your end-users to test your prototype.'

💡Lightning Talks

Lightning talks are a part of the 'Understand' phase where knowledge experts share their insights about the problem in a concise manner. They are a tool for quickly disseminating information and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the issue at hand. The script mentions, 'Lightning talks – where knowledge experts use 10–15 minutes to share their knowledge about the problem –, is an important part of the Understand Session.'

💡Storyboards

Storyboards are visual representations that help outline the steps of user interactions with a product. They are used in the 'Decide' phase to specify what the prototype should look like. The script refers to storyboards as, 'the last part of Decide Day is to create some storyboards for your ideas.'

💡User Research

User research is the process of gathering insights about users to inform the work done during the sprint. It is mentioned in the script as something to consider before the sprint begins: 'You might also need to collect or conduct user research, to get insights that can inform the work you do during the sprint.'

💡Cognitive Walkthrough

A cognitive walkthrough is a usability testing method used in the 'Validate' phase to evaluate the learnability and usability of a product. It is one of the tools mentioned in the script for validating the design: 'A cognitive walkthrough or brief usability test, are great tools to use in this phase.'

Highlights

Companies are hesitant to commit to big design projects without understanding their chances of success.

Google Ventures has developed a method called a 'design sprint' to streamline the design process.

A design sprint focuses on gaining insights into critical business questions within a five-day timeframe.

The design sprint process is based on design thinking and involves rapid design, prototyping, and user testing.

The sprint is a five-phase process, with each phase taking approximately one day or eight hours.

The phases of the design sprint are Understand, Sketch, Decide, Prototype, and Validate.

The design sprint is linear but encourages revisions and reiterations based on the first sprint.

Planning is required before the sprint begins, including writing a brief, conducting user research, and assembling a diverse team.

The ideal sprint team includes representatives from all relevant functions and levels within the organization.

A suitable space and necessary supplies are needed for the sprint, including a quiet, bright room and office supplies.

An icebreaker exercise is recommended to kick off the design sprint and warm up the team.

The Understand Session aims to create shared knowledge about the business problem.

Lightning talks are an important part of the Understand Session, where experts share their knowledge about the problem.

The Sketch Day involves individual efforts to come up with detailed solutions to the problem.

Decide Day is about selecting which idea to take to the Prototype Phase and identifying potential conflicts.

Prototype Day requires creating a prototype that users can test, using familiar tools and leveraging the whole team.

Validation on the final day involves bringing in end-users to test the prototype and observing their interactions.

The outcomes of a sprint can be an efficient failure, a flawed success, or an epic win, all providing valuable insights.

Google design sprints aim to make the design process lean and efficient, though not suitable for all types of design processes.

A highly productive design team working in sprints is more likely to add business value and be recognized within the organization.

Transcripts

companies are more reluctant than ever to commit to big design projects

without a thorough understanding of their chances of success.

Google has developed a method to make the design process fast

and still offer valuable insight.

The process developed by Google Ventures is called a *design sprint*.

It focuses on getting insights into critical business questions

within a very short timeframe – just five days.

The process is based on design thinking.

So, it attempts to gain those insights via rapid design,

prototype development

and user testing.

The design sprint is a five-phase process.

Each phase takes approximately one day or eight hours to perform.

So, a sprint can be done in five days.

The five phases of Google's design sprint are:

Understand,

Sketch,

Decide,

Prototype

and Validate.

The design sprint is a linear process.

But you're strongly encouraged to make revisions based on your first sprint

and then reiterate the prototype and validate phases.

You can also move further back to earlier phases and reiterate from there.

In the following, we'll look at each step in more detail.

But let's start by taking a quick look at

how to plan a design sprint.

To ensure that the design sprint will be successful,

some planning ahead is required.

Before the sprint begins, here are some things you should consider.

You should write a brief to state the sprint's goal and bring everyone on the same page.

You might also need to collect or conduct user research

to get insights that can inform the work you do during the sprint.

Consider who should be on your Sprint Team.

Google's Sprint process is designed to be run by teams rather than individuals.

That means getting everyone together and ensuring that they're all aiming in the same direction.

The ideal team will include representatives from all relevant functions

and at all levels in the organization.

You could also invite external people – for instance,

a representative user or stakeholder.

You need a suitable space for the sprint.

Typically, somewhere bright, quiet, with lots of wall space

and enough room for people to move about will be suitable.

You have to gather supplies for the sketching and prototyping phases.

Typically, you need office supplies like Post-its, blank sheets of paper,

color markers, tape and so on.

Finally, you should choose a good icebreaker exercise

to kick off your design sprint.

Some members of your team might not have worked together before.

So, it's good to start off with an activity to warm people up.

Now, let's take a look at each stage in the execution of the actual sprint.

In the Understand Session, your goal is to create shared knowledge

about the business problem you're working on.

You bring everyone together and unpack all

of your team's knowledge about the problem.

Lightning talks – where knowledge experts use 10–15 minutes to share their knowledge about the problem –

is an important part of the Understand Session.

Typical topics for a lightning talk are business goals,

insights from user research,

an overview of competitive products,

technical opportunities and so on.

As part of the lightning talks, it can be a good idea to have a presentation by

someone from senior management

outlining why the problem you're working on is important to the business.

Other typical activities of the Understand Phase are:

demonstrations of solutions that are already available,

a detailed walkthrough of any proposed solution,

creating user journeys and performing user research.

In the Understand Session, it's also a good idea to be clear on the metrics of success.

And remember,

your metrics should be useful and not pulled out of thin air.

When you do the Understand Session, it's important to involve the whole team.

Don't let an individual or group dominate the proceedings.

The idea is to ensure everyone is on the same page.

And the only way to do that is if everyone is heard from.

Once everyone is on the same page, it's time to split the team up

and get them to start working on solutions.

Sketch Day is an individual effort.

Everyone is tasked with coming up with a detailed solution to the problem.

It's a good idea to do this on paper for two reasons.

First, it's quick and it takes no time to make changes.

Second, everybody is able to sketch,

so they can participate even if they don't know any wireframing tools.

For particularly complex, large-scale problem-solving,

you might want to break up the problem into manageable chunks

and assign people a chunk rather than the whole problem.

The aim of Sketch Day is to get as many ideas down as possible.

If your team is large and you generate a ton of ideas,

you might want to allocate an hour at the end of the day

to quickly reduce the number of ideas to a more manageable number

before you go into the third day of the sprint.

As you might expect, Decide Day is all about making a decision

about which idea you're going to take to the Prototype Phase.

But there's more to Decide Day than making a decision.

It's also about working out how your solutions might conflict

with your objectives and abilities.

You can start the day by quickly listing any assumptions that you're making

about things like budget,

users,

technology capacity

and business drivers.

Then it's time to review each idea and look at the conflicts that it generates.

You should have an objective in mind during your review.

Will you be looking to take a single great idea forward to prototyping?

Or are you going to pick, say, a top 5

and take those forward?

You should be looking to constantly refine your list

and remove ideas that simply aren't feasible, early in the process.

The entire team takes part in the decision process

by participating in discussions and through voting for ideas.

Once you have an idea or ideas you want to prototype,

the last part of Decide Day is to create some storyboards for your ideas.

The storyboards should show each interaction with the user in a step-by-step process.

And they'll be your specification for your prototype.

You might also want to define a user story or two

to help beef up the specification.

As the title implies, on Prototype Day you have a single day to

create a prototype that your users can test on the final day.

First of all,

storyboard what you're going to build if you haven't already done that.

To build a prototype, you can use any tool of your choice.

Just pick one that you master enough for rapid prototyping.

The important thing is:

*Don't* attempt to learn a new tool on this day.

Just use whatever you're most comfortable with.

Finally, remember to leverage the whole team.

Assign tasks and get everyone building or helping with something.

Prototyping *isn't* just for the engineers.

Get people to document write, review,

plan a user test

– any activity that contributes towards your end goal.

On Day 5, you validate your idea.

The most important part of the validation is to

bring in a group of your end-users to test your prototype.

It's important that the entire team gets to observe the users interact with the product

either directly or through watching recordings of your test.

A cognitive walkthrough or brief usability test

are great tools to use in this phase.

Another good activity to validate your design is to

bring in experts and management stakeholders to review your idea.

Everyone on the team should make notes and record what they feel they've learned.

You want to take these notes

and summarize them at the end of the day.

This should help you decide if anything needs iterating and improving.

At the end of the final day,

take some time with the whole team to reflect on your experience.

As Google puts it, there can be three possible outcomes to a sprint:

An efficient failure.

Perhaps your ideas didn't work so well,

but you learned a lot in the process and saved your team a lot of time

from going down the wrong path.

A flawed success.

Perhaps some ideas worked nicely, while others didn't.

This gives you insights on what can be improved

and what you could work on next.

Finally – An epic win.

The ideas your team had have shown great promise

and seemed to work really well.

You're ready to move into a more serious implementation phase.

Either way, you can only win.

Whether it's by avoiding failure, learning where more work needs to be put in

or generating a killer design,

you can only emerge from the design wiser and more experienced.

The added bonus is that the time you've sacrificed for this is relatively short.

Though this is a tried-and-tested method by Google,

it's also a relatively new concept adapted from Agile methods.

It might take a few tries within your organization to keep the sprint to five days.

That's okay.

You can work towards delivering faster sprints as you get more practice.

So, what's the take away?

Google design sprints should help you take a process that currently takes months

and make it lean and efficient.

It's not a substitute for all design processes,

especially not for very complex products.

But it's one that lets you ideate and test ideas *incredibly fast*.

A highly productive design team working in sprints

is more likely to add business value and

be recognized for their work within the larger organization.