This week, Adriel shares with us something a bit more lighthearted but still very applicable to the entrepreneur ecosystem — a class he recently attended called “Design Sprint”.
“Design Sprint” was conducted by his mentor Kwai, targeting students embarking on a Masters in entrepreneurship.
The concept of a Design Sprint was first coined by three design partners at Google Ventures, with the goal of helping their startups solve tough problems using design, prototyping and testing ideas with customers within 5 days.
Kwai intended to use this Design Sprint to purposefully force ideas out, and if that didn’t work, at least shift one’s thinking and mindset. He commented that while the use of the Business Model Canvas was great in drawing out the vast pains and desires that potential customers go through, it didn’t really help with the creative aspects of building a product. That was something the team sorely needed.
The phases of a Design Sprint are as follows:
- Defining the Objective of the Sprint
- “How Might We” Statements
- Lightning Demo
- Krazy-8
Phase 1 — Defining The Objective Of the Sprint
Before sprinting, it is always paramount to ask oneself “Why?” — What are you trying to accomplish?
At this juncture, one is not looking to answer any specific requests. Rather, just being able to formulate a rough direction is a great enough start to set the tone of the Sprint.
Phase 2 — “How Might We” Statements (HMWS)
In Phase 2 of the sprint, the team moved slightly deeper into the objective of the Sprint.
HMWS are used to define some of the problems that need to be solved. The goal is to ask questions that will spark some form of ideation process in one’s mind. It is phrased in such a way so as to encourage everyone to think positively and expansively, and not limiting oneself to what “reality” dictates.
At this juncture, the team was only given around 5–8 minutes to write as many broad HMWS as possible on post-it notes.
Each HMWS follows a simple rule: start the statement with a “How might we”, then input a verb, a target audience and an outcome that one wishes to accomplish.
Here are some examples:
“How might we provide maximum upside and minimum downside for our millennial investors to invest in securely?”
“How might we build trust between Pratu and our buyers so that they can invest with peace?”
Once the allotted time elapsed, Kwai called for everyone to stop and began grouping all the different HMWS on the board.
If one was able to identify categories that could help group certain statements together, it made for easier visualisation of the statements. The team had categories like customer acquisition, trust, customer relations and miscellaneous.
After all the statements were categorised, participants then voted for the statements that resonated the most with them. The team would then focus on those top voted statements in the next phase.
Phase 3 — Lightning Demo
In the Lightning Demo phase, the team looked at possible competitors that were embarking on a similar idea or had already had a foothold in the industry. The goal was to glean off any information about a particular competitor.
For me personally, I found that many of the competitors had certain similar questions that they had in their FAQs, and that signaled to me that those were the crucial questions that our potential customers would be asking.
Apart from that, aspects like the UI/UX design of the site were things that we investigated briefly. We also looked at the content that certain competitors’ were putting up to give a better idea on what we needed to take note of.-Adriel
This part of the Sprint is crucial because it served as a fuel source to feed creativity, getting the participants’ brains all fired up and ready to enter the final and most fun part of the Sprint.
Phase 4 — Krazy 8
The rule of Krazy 8 is simple: each participant has 8 minutes to come up with 8 ideas.
There was no room to think about how feasible the idea was; one just had to think on the fly and move fast.
At every minute interval, Kwai would call for the team to switch to a new idea. The purpose of this was to ensure that one wasn’t too fixated on a singular idea.
Once complete, participants gathered in their teams and went around introducing the ideas that they had come up with.
At the end of the discussion, another round of voting took place, and the best 5 ideas were chosen.
Kwai then appointed Adriel to be play the role of “The Decider”, and his vote carried greater weight. Adriel had the power to supersede everyone’s vote, and force attention onto one particular idea. “The Decider” portrayed a third party, someone who is usually an expert in the field, making a unilateral decision.
Once Adriel casted his vote and rationalised his decisions, the participants then proceeded to use an impact-effort matrix to group their chosen ideas against the impact that it made and the effort that it took to execute it.
If an idea was deemed to be low in effort and high in impact, it should be part of the MVP (minimum viable product); if the idea had been categorised as high impact but high effort, then decisions have to be made to determine if this was something that a startup was willing to venture into.
Taking part in my first ever Design Sprint was really exciting and tiring at the same time because the Sprint forces you to think as deeply as you can at a lightning pace. That really takes a toll on your mind and honestly, I can’t imagine how it would be like doing this for 5 days straight.-Adriel
Key takeaways for Adriel included the themes of trust (there needed to be legitimate concerns over the viability and impact of the idea, as well as credibility of the service provider) and the importance of making the user experience fun and enjoyable.
This Sprint has given me a starting point to investigate further and plow forward. I wouldn’t have known that a Design Sprint would set my brain on fire like that.
If you’re with a group of friends, try it out and you’ll be surprised at what kinds of ideas you’ll get.-Adriel
For a full account of Adriel’s Design Sprint experiences and takeaways, do read here.
Till next week!
