DESIGN SPRINT: Conducting an Effective Methodology
By: Maria Fernanda Treviño, Community Manager at Carbono Dev.
Some people may already know what Design Sprint is and why it is so important for accelerating any product idea. Nevertheless, some people can think that the Design Sprint may be a long and hard process and tend to skip it and proceed directly on launching the product or any other step. The truth is, it's an easy process and 94% of product launchers enjoy it, they firmly believe that this methodology helped them fall in love even more with their product idea. Carbono Team deeply believes in the Design Sprint methodology and in this article, I explain it all! Hope you enjoy.
The Design Sprint is a 5-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers.
The first thing you should do before starting with the Design Sprint methodology is PREPARE YOURSELF.
How do we prepare for it? Some of you may ask.
Follow the 4 steps mentioned below so you can proceed, ensure that these 4 steps are conducted correctly, otherwise you will have issues during the Design Spring methodology.
- Organize your team (make sure they have different profiles)
- Write a brief of your idea
- Research your potential users
- Choose a suitable space to work
After being prepared, you can now proceed to the Design Sprint process.
There are 5 phases of the Design Sprint, 1 phase for each day of the week:
PHASE 1:
Understand- You must make sure that your team fully understands the challenge you will solve. Everyone must be aligned and start from the same knowledge base so that the following phases can be done correctly.
PHASE 2:
Sketching- Focus on the solutions you are looking for.
You can rely on brainstorming for each member of your team, that will help you open your panorama even more and that have more possibilities of addressing several solutions and not just one.
PHASE 3:
Decide- In this phase it is determined what the prototype will look like. Your entire team must share their brainstorm with you and you must choose the best solutions to your initial problem. In this phase you will also create a Story Board, in which everyone (including yourself) will draw the step by step to create the prototype. This will help the team to have a vision of how the almost-finished product will look like.
PHASE 4:
Prototyping - Build ONLY what you have decided on Phase 3. At this stage you shouldn’t question what it has already been defined. The team is divided and specific tasks are assigned. Also, you must work in an interview for your potential users, since they are the ones who will rate your final product and those who will use it in the end.
PHASE 5:
Validate - At this stage, the entire team must observe the users and see how they interact with the prototype. At the end, a feedback by the users must take place.
If you want to learn more about Design Sprint, take a look at this podcast by Jorge Álvarez, director of Carbon Head of Growth, where he talks about this topic:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2fThLJNcM53Lt5Ep51FG2i?si=VE8bwthwRGS4CgJbho8OeQ
On the other hand, a great book that talks about this topic is called “Sprint” written by Jake Knapp! Available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com.mx/Sprint-método-resolver-problemas-probar/dp/6073155239/ref=asc_df_6073155239/?tag=gledskshopmx-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=295443628737&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4153749596494514284&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1010132&hvtargid=pla-451771077737&psc=1