What is a design sprint?
Definition: A Design sprint is a process of validating, building, and testing new ideas or solutions in a short time (usually five days). It is a collaborative interdisciplinary process that brings together key stakeholders to quickly identify and solve a problem.
They help teams make better decisions by rapidly going from idea to prototype and seeing the results, deciding if they will invest more time and resources into the project or move to a new one.
Using design sprints, teams can solve complex problems quicker by trying out different solutions quickly and picking the best one.
H2: Design sprint process
Design sprint process is divided into five phases:
- Understand: Conducting research, defining and understanding the problem, and setting sprint objectives.
- Sketch: Generating ideas and detailed solutions to the problem.
- Decide: Making the decision out of all the ideas and refining it into a workable solution.
- Prototype: Building a working prototype of the solution.
- Test: Testing the prototype and gathering feedback.
Teams will usually work on each part of the process for one day of the week filling all five work days.
At the end of the sprint, the team will know if the sprint was a:
- Failure: The prototype didn’t work, and the team has to rethink their approach.
- Mild success: Parts of the prototype worked, and another sprint is needed to refine it.
- Success: The prototype solved a problem and can be scaled into a product.
Needed roles & responsibilities for a successful design sprint
Roles needed for a sprint:
- Decider: Has the most decision-making power to move the sprint forward and influence its goals.
- Facilitator: Leads the team through the sprint and keeps them focused on the objective.
- Customer experience: Provides the team with user input and looks at the solution from their perspective.
- Prototypers: They include designers and engineers who will build a working prototype.
- Recruiter: Recruits and coordinates users that will provide input and test the solution.
Besides these roles, a sprint team may include other roles (finance, marketing, business…) depending on the project's needs.
Successful sprints fill these roles with people from diverse experience levels, personalities, and backgrounds for the team to have different perspectives.
