Integrating design sprints into your company
Over the past year, design sprints have been adopted by people and companies trying to find better, faster ways to learn and create. From authors testing out new book concepts to software teams working on the next VR breakthroughs to management consulting companies reinventing their client practices. What’s not to love with a framework that enables you to validate your biggest ideas in 5 days?
But design sprints are new and disruptive to traditional approaches. That probably means if you’re the one talking about design sprints inside your company, you’re probably also struggling to get others to give one a shot.
Will this really work?
Personally, when I first read about Google Ventures’ design sprints, I was excited and suspicious. At Accenture we were indoctrinated into the belief that project plans always demanded months of requirements gathering and spec writing before a single discussion could take place about product design. How on Earth could anything viable be accomplished in 5 days?! But then something happened — I sat in on our first sprint we ran with a New Haircut client. Sure, it was sloppy compared to how we run sprints today, but even in that beautiful disaster there was an obvious lift in thinking, collaboration, energy and speed. We (and our clients) were instantly hooked.
Over the past year we’ve now run dozens of sprints against our own ideas, as well as for the companies that hire us to design and build their digital products. But now, more and more, we’re talking with people on teams inside companies that have attempted to bring design sprints into their culture but hitting major roadblocks. From navigating changing processes, to getting business leadership to agree to spend 5 consecutive days in a room, to the bevy of other 1-line excuses, we’ve now heard it all.
Let’s break down these 3 types of pushback and then supply you with the tools you’ll need to get sprints indoctrinated successfully into your organization.
Change is scary
For many, the idea of changing anything stirs up angst. When we go into large organizations to train their product teams on design thinking we hear all sorts of grunts and groans. For example, Project Managers want to know how a sprint will impact that budgets and timelines. The truth is, by spending these 5 well-orchestrated days upfront, we’ve seen product development budgets and timelines shrink by up to 75%!
Likewise, Creative Directors squirm that their design processes are already “lean”, “agile” or even both. Great. But when we often ask them to define how their process works and who’s involved…well, after about 20 minutes of rambling it becomes obvious that the process is heavy and convoluted with no specific, measurable outcomes. Whereas design sprints follow a precise set of events being carried out by a specific group of people over 5 days where the output is documented, customer-tested prototype.
Design sprints cut through the noise and the ego. Unfortunately, some people in your organization may have been using that veil to keep control of their people, processes and tools and will fight against anything that brings better, faster, more collaborative practices.
“5 consecutive days? Never!”
Everyone is busy. That’s why one of the biggest gripes we hear from people, especially those operating in corporate environments where you have meetings to plan for meetings, is that the idea of spending 5 days on a single topic seems impossible. However, the issue is that they’ve never had a real process (brainstorming is not a process) to raise a challenge and identify a solution that didn’t involve weeks of emails, stakeholder interviews, meetings, and more meetings. Design sprints now provide that exact framework.
When these same people complete their first design sprint with us, not a single one has left the sprint week without acknowledging how much time they could have saved over their career had they adopted the process sooner.
Tip: Try to convince the team to spend time getting through just Day One of the sprint. This should provide enough insight into how powerful the sprint can be.
And a litany of other excuses
“We’ve tried brainstorming meetings.”
“Our customers don’t know what they want.”
“We already did our research.”
“We are the customer.”
“We know what we have to build.”
Most of us are creatures of habit and comfort. We trust what we know already. So when it comes to deciding upon how to solve a really important problem, most want to jump right to the solution. We convince ourselves and others around us that we already know everything we need to know and can just get started. Unfortunately, it’s typically not until weeks or months later that the hard questions come up that we need to start from the beginning, all over again.
Instead, design sprints provide you with the tools and techniques to enable a team of individuals to arrive at the right solution, together, in 5 days. So when you hear the excuses come rolling through, just ask out loud — “If this idea is so important, doesn’t it make sense to spend 1 week making sure we’re taking the best approach to solving it?”
Can your company afford for the answer to ever be “No” here?
Taking this forward
Most people are hardwired to push back on new ideas. The same will likely be true as you begin to champion design thinking inside your company’s existing structures.
In addition to the ideas captured above, here are 4 tactics to try and introduce larger design thinking mindsets into your company:
Extend existing. One of the guiding principles in Switch is that you can’t get people to drop everything they know, overnight. Instead, start by innovating 1 small piece, then another, etc. This will allow others to evolve into a new way of thinking.
Double deliver. Next time you’re asked to deliver something, do it in the manner your boss & peers are accustomed to. Then perform it with this new approach. Be prepared to share the benefits you experienced trying out the new approach.
Extraordinarily extracurricular. Volunteer around the company for fun, innovative experiences. Show others how exceptionally creative you are and gain their trust so you become the go-to person for innovative thinking for upcoming work-related projects.
Innovation lab. Rally a small group together that appreciates being pioneers of new, bold methods. Take on experimental projects. Make failing safe and acceptable. Then invite others to peer into the success you’re having — their sponsorship will organically promote your new ideas to others.
Still stuck with getting design sprints baked into your team’s mindset?…Encourage them to download Duco. It’s a free iOS app (Android coming soon) that’s meant to help anyone learn the steps to implementing successful design sprints.
Of course, you can always get in touch with us. We’ve helped dozens of people inside companies, big and small, run high-impact design sprints.
