The Product Design Sprint: A five-day recipe for startups

Description

At Google Ventures, product design sprint deliver predict result within 5 days:

  • Before the Sprint Get the right people and do right things
  • Day 1: Understand Dig into through research, competitive review, and strategy exercises.
  • Day 2: Diverge Rapidly develop many solutions.
  • Day 3: Decide Choose the best ideas and hammer out a user story.
  • Day 4: Prototype
  • Day 5: Validate Show the prototype to external user and gather feedback

Source

The product design sprint: https://library.gv.com/the-product-design-sprint-understand-day-1-e164f76e69cf

Before the Sprint

  • Great ideas from heads-down individuals not Groups
  • Good-but-not-greate ideas through Groups consensus

Get Right People

Must Have:

  • Designer
  • CEO: decision making and get actionable solution
  • PM: implement solution
  • User expert: direct contact with customer

Nice to Have:

  • Engineer
  • Maketer
  • Interested Individuals

Do Right Things

  • User Study, before jump in design
  • Name the facilitator: who cooridanate the sprint and meetings and so on
  • Put it on the calendar: get clear 5 consecutive days for everyone

Day 1: Understand

Goal: Encourage everyone to share knowledge and bring the rest to the same table

Building understanding exercises

  • For each exercise constantly share “How might we …”
  • Business opporunitiy: product leader walk through market
  • Look at competitor’s products
  • Look at non-competitive products in similar domain or solve similar question
  • Print all important UI mocks of our product
  • Success metrics
  • Share existing user research
  • Interview notes from relevent domain
  • Existing analytics
  • IMPORTANT: sketch the most important user story

Checklist to prepare for prototype

  • When to present prototype to user?
  • What to hope to learn from prototype?
  • What do you need to design and prototype in order to learn?

Day 2: Diverge

Goal: Illuminate all of the possible paths

  • This is not brainstorming idea. Don’t work in groups
  • Everyone working quielty and individually
  • Ok to have old ideas
  • Divide and conquer. Pick up a piece of the story to focus

Day 3: Decide

Goal: tough decision to make: which solution to pursue and which to put on ice?

  • CEO sometimes have to be blunt and make decision
  • search for conclicts: different approaches to the same problem

Next Step Prototpe: Best Shot or Battle Royale

  • Battle Royale: prototype on different approaches and test against each other
  • Best Shot: go with a single prototype
  • Or 3rd route: Hybrid model

Checklist to parepare for prototype

  • List underlying assumptions
  • Whiteboard the user story
  • Best shot or battle royal?

Day 4: Prototype

  • Minimally real
  • Use real text for core UI text
  • Keynote/PPT Slide 90% time is sufficient than Code
    • Fast
    • Easy to look good: excellent animation make it more real
    • Anybody can use and not expensive to build
    • Easy to share
    • Easy to make change in the future
  • Use Keynotopia UI Prototype Template to speed up prototype
  • Divide and Concquer: split stask and work with others
  • Lightning critique midday (eg. 5 min): to ensure consistency
  • Review with outsiders
  • Let engineer know the code is THROWAWAY.
  • It’s ok to be imperfect.

Day 5: Validate

Get real outsider user to test product

List Key Questions

  • Review conflicts and assumptions
  • Indictate if battle royale
  • Show observers real product for comparison
  • Think beyond the prototype and get unexpected insights
  • Don’t diss the dumb user
  • Designate a interview transcript reporter

Potential Comments

  • “First impression: geniuses or idiots”. People are different. No action required.
  • “Oh, this is complicated …” Watch how people suffer and learn from it
  • “There is a pattern!”. Write down things that work vs problem need to solve.

Next Sprint

What’s action item for next sprint, pick one:

  • Tune existing protoype and keep working
  • Go back to step 2 diverge and come up with more solutions
  • Go back to step 1 understand and understand why this sprint failed

Note: Last but not least, CEO appreciate that they have a clear list of action items. No effort is wasted. Next sprint move more quickly or with less effort.