Our sprint process is tailored to each client and will likely evolve over time. Toward that end, we want to document sprints and identify success factors at each phase and the structuring of the overall sprint.

Here is a living list of previous sprints. After running a design sprint, feel free to add a retrospective on your sprint using the example README.md – the PR process allows for other designers/developers/stakeholders to review as well:

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Product Design Playbook

This repo is a collection of documents intended to help guide a design sprint. It contains guidelines that should not be followed exactly. Each sprint should be tailored to the individual project.

What is a product design sprint?

Why do a design sprint?

A design sprint orients the team and aims our efforts toward a mutual goal. Design thinking and product design sprints keep us on target and invest our time and money wisely.

Sprints are useful when kicking off a new business, product, feature, or workflow. Sprints can also be used to solve problems with an existing product.

What should you expect to have at the end of a design sprint?

At the end of the sprint, the team will understand the problem and will have validated whether we have a viable solution to begin building or whether we need to run another sprint to keep searching for a solution.

Design Sprint Overview

A design sprint is comprised of five phases; Understand, Diverge, Converge, Prototype and Test. Each phase typically lasts one day.

We should not start a sprint without defining a "job to be done" as the focus of the sprint. The "job to be done" may evolve during the sprint into a problem statement agreed upon by the whole team, but without one as a starting point our client is not ready and should not be paying us.

The Understand phase develops a common understanding of the context within which we are working and all the elements in that context: the customer, their job to be done, and the business our client hopes to support by servicing the job to be done. We want to expose risky knowledge gaps and assumptions so we can make plans to reduce those risks and move forward with confidence.

The Diverge phase generates insights and concepts for solutions. Our goal is to explore as many possibilities as possible, regardless of how feasible or viable. Insights are born from this explosion of possibilities by considering the implications of radically different approaches to solving a problem. These insights can become valuable differentiating forces and the source of inspiration for unique solutions.

The Converge phase takes all the possibilities generated over the past two phases and hones in on a single version to prototype and test with existing or potential customers. By exploring and eliminating so many options, we have reason to be more confident in our choices.

The Prototype phase develops a prototype that fills our riskiest knowledge gaps and assumptions. Paper prototypes, Keynote prototypes, Flinto prototypes, and static HTML/CSS pages are all valid mediums. The medium should be determined by our time constraints and learning goals.

This step for us at messy.studio moves the wireframe a little beyond the basic structural benefits, moving toward the life-like qualities of design, but without distracting from the focus of function.

The Test phase tests our prototype with existing or potential customers. By the end of this phase, we should have validated or invalidated our riskiest knowledge gaps and assumptions and have confidence in our next steps.

Throughout the sprint you want to be recording as much as possible. We've found Trello to be an excellent tool to help the team record the activities taken during the sprint. This template helps alleviate some of the initial setup for the board and leaves references to this repo.

An excellent repository of essential tools that will aid in your workshop creation. This toolkit provides templates for; ice-breakers, workshop agenda and canvas

Example Design Sprint Schedule

Further Reading

Contributing

Credits

License

Client: Example Client
Team: Maven UX
Designer(s): Melissa McWilliams
Date: 01.01.18
Trello Board: https://trello.com/

Context

This is general context about the sprint, the project, and the client. Any outside constraints on the project?

Phase 1 - Understand

Specifics about the first phase of the sprint

[img of critical path]

Phase 2 - Diverge

[Problem Statement]

Specifics about the second phase of the sprint

Phase 3 - Converge

Specifics about the third phase of the sprint

Phase 4 - Prototype

Specifics about the fourth phase of the sprint

[img of prototype]

Phase 5 - Test & Validate

Specifics about the fifth phase of the sprint

What Worked?

Tell your fellow designers what worked

What Didn't Work?

Tell your fellow designers what didn't work so well

Dear ______,

Thank you for choosing messy.design to help you develop your product! We are excited to work with you and your team to help your business successfully grow. In order to achieve this goal, we are kicking off the project with the 5-day Product Design Sprint to better understand how we can work together to create a successful product.

Before we start the design sprint, it is important to gather important research materials to save us time during the week. Please come prepared with the relevant information below!

Please identify five (5) users we can test at 30-minute-intervals during Day 5: Validation.

• 1.

• 2.

• 3.

• 4.

• 5.

Please identify at least three (3) websites that are competitors/similar to your idea.

• 1.

• 2.

• 3.

Please conduct at least three(3) customer interviews.

• Who are the customers?

• What are their stories?

• How do they feel about the stated problem?

Thank you for preparing these materials. If you can, please send these materials prior to the design sprint to the designers. We look forward to working with you on _!

Best,

The messy.design Team!

[Summary of Analytics and Lightning Demos]

Analytics: Google AdWords

Competitive & Related Products

Lightning Demos

Hi _____________,

We're excited to start our design sprint.

To prepare for it, it would be great to have:

(1) A list of websites similar to parts of what we want to create, as well as other websites with aspects we may wish to emulate

(2) Information about each of your key customer types: who they are, their stories, and how they feel about the problem we are working to solve. If there's documentation from interviews you conducted with them, we'd love to see that too.

(3) Any existing materials you already have on hand, such as user stories, wireframes, or prototypes. No need to flesh these out more than you already have, but they'd be great background. Note that what we end up with at the end of the sprint may be different.

(4) Any other background materials you already have.

(5) For ____, we'll want to schedule time with users in the morning and early afternoon. 6 users for 30 minutes each would be ideal. If you identify the people you want to bring in, we'd be happy to schedule them, or you could schedule the times directly if that's easier. We'll want to finish by 2:30pm to prepare findings for a 3:30pm discussion that day that will end the Design Sprint. We'll have each participant use the prototype we built and ask them questions to get their feedback.

See you soon.

Thanks,

-- The messy.design Team!

Hi everyone,

I wanted to update this invite to include a small pre-read. Please let me know if you have any questions. I use the term ‘sprint’ throughout the documentation and activities. I realize that we are doing a modified ‘design sprint’ but I wanted to stay consistent with the overall philosophy.

📜 The guiding principles

• Getting started is more important than being 100% right. The Sprint is here to help us adopt a versatile think→prototype→test→learn mindset. This allows us to be agile problem solvers and make better decisions faster.

• Learning in the real world consolidates desk research. À la the Lean Startup approach, we want to validate our ideas with real people really fast.

• Tangible results are better than endless discussions. You'll see the Sprint is really intense and there are no empty conversations. Every time we will talk, comment or discuss, we'll be looking AT something (a sketch, a prototype, an example).

• You don't need to be an artist. Although it's called a Design Sprint, you don't need to be an interface design expert. The process allows anyone with any role to come up with great ideas.

🎯 The task

We want to explore ideas for improving the online customer experience by exploring a new 10X toolkit, because:

• We noticed our customers our leaving our product really quickly after signing up

• Research shows people don't understand what we do and how we're different

• It will take much longer to build a homegrown tool rather than purchase something that allows us to work ‘out of the box’

• Research suggests there are 5 themes customers would like us to tackle, leveraging this toolkit would allow us to work smarter not harder

⭐️ The expectations

By the end of our Design Sprint, we expect the following outcomes:

• Have a better, more complete understanding of the challenges we face when it comes to customers interacting with a new 10X website

• Have generated a set of potential solutions to improve the experience

• Have created a customer-facing, high-fidelity prototype

• Have tested out the prototype with (at least) 5 real customers & collected feedback

• Have a clear answer whether our solutions is viable + next steps

📍Where

You have all been invited to join the "Springboard" Miro board. If you haven't received the invite, please reach out immediately.

Please make sure to watch these 2 onboarding videos of Miro (it takes 5 mins):

✅ Things to do before the Sprint

There are just a few things we ask of you as a preparatory component, outlined here:

• [x] Read this document

• [ ] Make sure you have been invited to the Miro board

• [ ] Please watch the guides on how to use Miro's basic features

🏁 Final remarks

Yay, you've made it all the way to the end! You're now prepared for our upcoming Design Sprint. Rest assured, you will have guidance along the way — if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to me.

Notify all members of the sprint to set up the expectation of anything that they need to complete before the sprint and what to expect during the sprint.

Review roles for the sprint

Facilitator Leads the design sprint. Guides the sprint from start to completion.

Recorder Takes notes, photographs and is in charge of the documentation for the sprint.

Product Owner Typically the client and/or the person with the initial product vision. This person has final say in the product.

Set expectations for the outcome for the sprint

Sometimes, design sprints converge on solutions that are partially or completely invalidated. Some things will have worked, and others won't. Make sure everyone understands that the outcome falls in one of three buckets:

• Most stuff worked

This often doesn't happen during the first sprint on a project, but if it happens to you, everyone on the team is probably on the same page about the fixes and tweaks you need to make.

What to do next: Take a week to tune your existing prototype. Create a backlog for developers to start implementation of the most important features or API integrations.

• Some big questions

A common outcome after a user study is a mixed bag: a few hits, a few tweaks, and a couple of real head-scratchers. Fortunately Keynote or Invision prototypes are easy to change, and as long as some parts of your design are solid, you can probably build on what you have.

What to do next: You can move fast on the tweaks, but you’ll want to come up with multiple solutions for the bigger problems. Start your next sprint at step 2 (Diverge).

• Everything exploded

We've seen a lot of designs go up in flames, and that's OK. You learned that something didn’t work, and it only took you a few hours to build it. This is great progress, and very cheap relative to building and launching a full product. Think what would have happened if you’d spent weeks or months implementing this solution!

What to do next: Start your next sprint back at the drawing board with step 1 (Understand). (Hint: the results of this study are perfect fodder for reviewing and building understanding as a group.)

Review design sprint documentation and schedule

The moderator of the sprint should be reviewing design sprint documentation and coming up with a plan specific to the project of feature set. Typically done by the Facilitator.

Gather existing research and information

Learning from previous product design sprints, existing product or other test and research done. Typically done by the Product Owner.

Capture existing competition

Any potential competition that solves the same or similar problem that the sprint is trying to solve. This should include lowest common denominator competitors such as email and offline tools. Typically done by the Product Owner.

Set up room

Make sure you have a room big enough to fit all of the people in the sprint. The room would have a whiteboard and a place to pin or tape up sketches. Typically done by Facilitator.

Buy supplies needed for sprint

• Sharpies

• Post-its

• Blank sheets of Printer paper

• Whiteboard markers

• Circle vote stickers

• Easel Pad

Typically done by Facilitator.

Schedule 4–6 people for interviews / usability tests

Day one of the design sprint is about gathering all existing information/knowledge on the business, the customer and the problem and exposing our assumptions and knowledge gaps. From here can make plans to fill the riskiest knowledge gaps and validate or invalidate our riskiest assumptions.

Throughout Understand you should be working on defining the business, who is going to be using the product, how this product is solving a problem that those users have. What are the situations that users will be using the product or feature? What are their motivations behind using it? What are any outside motivators that might effect their use? The whole team should think about what product success looks like and what success looks like for just the sprint.

The team should also talk about what they don't know, where knowledge gaps are for the problem. As all of those are being defined assumptions that. The team should cover existing research done before the sprint and review analysis of competitive products.

At the end of Understand the team should have captured the critical path for the problem.

A Guide for 'Understand':

As you work through the understand phase of a sprint there will be a lot of questions that come up and information that is uncovered.

Ask obvious questions and embrace the beginners mind.

Shoshin(初心) is a concept in Zen Buddhism meaning beginner's mind. It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would.

Activities for Understand:

Start with a feature wish list and condense into columns of priority for "Needs" (aka Must Haves, Top Priority), "Wants" (Nice to Haves), "Desires" (Would love to have someday...). This activity is great for ironing out which features are most important and which could potentially be put on the back burner list.

As a group, use your common understanding to collaboratively map out the user story that’s important in this sprint. The facilitator (or another volunteer) should stand at the whiteboard and sketch the flow. This doesn’t have to be fancy to be useful.

Throughout the day and rest of the week we will ask questions we don’t have answers to and identify assumptions we are relying on. We will capture these ‘Assumptions’ on a board for later organization and analysis.

Identifying the problem will help to determine if there is a problem, if that problem is solvable, and how to solve that problem. This step will be the first step to answering this question: What is this product, and is it useful?

We will also be generating a lot of ideas throughout the week. Some of the ideas will be pertinent to the tasks at hand, but others, although interesting, won’t be. We will capture these good but not immediately relevant ‘back-burner ideas’ on a sticky note board.

The product owner should walk the sprint team through the business opportunity and market. The repetition of this process throughout the design sprint helps to reinforce an understanding of the essential value of the product.

Card sorting helps categorize and prioritize features, ideas and different concepts so that it is easier to understand the problem. It is useful for working through user flow, moving features to the back burner board and merging similar ideas.

--

Facts that will shape this product/service

Identify all assumptions and knowledge gaps that introduce risk. Gathering them here will help us in assessing the riskiest ones and making actionable plans for reducing that risk so we can move forward confidently and as risk averse as possible.

Assumptions

• Assumptions about our product

• Assumptions about the the market/problem

• Assumptions about the customers

Questions

• Questions about the customer

• Questions about the market/problem

• Questions about our product

What is your business and what do you envision it to be?

The Market

The opportunity

What is the vision?

What are the immediate business goals?

• 1 month from now

• 3 months from now

• 6 months from now

What are the long term business goals?

• 1 year from now

What does success look like?

What metrics can we measure to monitor our progress and determine success?

Business Model Canvas

• Key Partners

• Key Activities

• Key Resources

• Value Propositions

• Customer Relationships

• Possible Channels

• Customer Segments

• Possible Revenue Streams

TODO: find a way to make this more visual

TODO: info sources should just be referenced when info from that source is captured

Sources of Inspiration

Gather sources of inspiration and take notes on what is inspiring.

Valuable articles and other info

Gather articles and info and add notes on what was valuable. Make sure to update other documents based on learnings.

Problem 1:

Current Solutions:

What does the world look like without this problem?

The Value Hypothesis (What value will people get from this product?)

For customer segment #1:

Who are your customers or who do you expect them to be?

Customer Segment #1

• What do we already know? (the facts)

• What do we need to know more about and “how might we” find it out?

  • [add questions to the ‘risks’ doc]

Team intros (15min)

Introduce the design sprint team, announce the Product Owner and acknowledge the others involved with the project but not participating in the design sprint.

Intro to the Design Sprint Process (5min)

High Level overview and goals of each day. Set expectations about how we might feel at certain steps in the process.

There are many uses for a design sprint. At the core a design sprint is about quickly and collaboratively using design thinking to solve problems.

Intro to Day 1: Understand (5min)

Day 1 is about developing a common understanding of the context within which we are working and all the elements in that context (the problem, the business, the customer, the value prop/hypothesis, success, etc). Our goal is to expose risky knowledge gaps and identify risky assumptions so that we can make plans for reducing those risks and move forward confident we are heading in the right direction. Also, by gather info we will empower our decision making abilities and eliminate the need for guesswork later on.

The Problem Statement (10min)

Introduce Assumptions Board (10min)

Introduce Back-burner Board (10min)

Pitch Practice (15min)

Existing research (10min)

Quickly identify existing research the client has done and determine when that research can be brought back during the definitions section of the day.

Definitions: The Business & The Customer (1hr)

Definitions: The problem, The Value Prop, Success (1hr)

Business Model Canvas (30min)

Lightning Demos (45min)

Expert Perspectives (30min)

Identify existing research and other perspectives that would provide valuable insights and info.

Daily Recap (30min)

Consolidate notes and write daily summary.

During Converge our goal is to take all of the possibilities that we have exposed over the past two days and hone in on a single version of the prototype that we will build tomorrow.

Activities for Converge

Identify Conflicts

Throughout Diverge there should have been many conflicting ideas. A conflict is a place where there are two or more different approaches to solving the same problem. Conflicting approaches are helpful because they illuminate possible choices for your product.

Review all of the Assumptions that have been collected over the course of the sprint. Decide a plan to test them and decide how to determine from the test if it is valid or not.

As a group review all the Back burner ideas. Document the ones that are still applicable and throw away any that aren't.

In this case the Storyboard should be a team effort and should focus on what the team will be prototyping. This should be done on a whiteboard so everyone can see it. Start by drawing a comic book frame for each single action in the critical path. Don't worry too much about layout or design details. Those can be figured out later. One person should be drawing but they shouldn't be the one figuring everything out. This should be a discussion between the whole sprint team.

3-12-3 is a good way to generate ideas in a big group and then start to converge them down. It is great to do after the Google Ventures Diverge Cycle when there seems to be more ideas and no really strong direction forward.

Case Study

Because Great Engagements is an entirely new product, considering a customer’s first encounter and reaction to the product is very important in terms of understanding positioning and how to successfully communicate with potential customers. From all of the discovery we have done over the past two days, we feel strongly about differentiating ourselves in the market by capturing the customer with an emotional and inspirational AirBnb like venue discovery experience.

To test if we can successfully do this, we decided on a very image heavy layout that suggests beautiful wedding themes and experiences to get the potential customer thinking aspirationally about their wedding experience. We also decided to preset the potential customer with a madlib style venue search form that we hope will encourage the customer to get excited about starting the discovery process.

Intro to Day 3: Converge, guidelines (5min)

Pitch Practice (10min)

Revisit our risks (15min)

Recap Day 2, identify themes from our storyboards (30min)

Identify conflicts in our storyboards (30min)

Conflict: two or more ways of solving the same problem.

List the underlying assumptions (30min)

Create a table with two columns. One listing the assumptions embedded in our prototype and the other listing the ways in which we can test those assumptions.

Storyboard your prototype (2hrs)

Determine prototype medium (10min)

Plan interview questions (40min)

Make plans for reducing risks not addressed by the prototype (40min)

Consider plans for the week following the design sprint (30min)

Daily Recap (30min)

Consolidate notes and write daily summary.

Intro to Day 2: Diverge (5min)

Guidelines

Everyone participates, you don’t need to be an artist (I’m not!) to sketch and visualize your ideas. No ideas are too wild!

Recap Day 1, identify biggest risks, determine goals for the prototype (45min)

Identify and diagram the critical path for the prototype (45min)

Write down the user story that is most important for this sprint or that best addresses our most blocking/risky assumptions/knowledge gaps. (Write the story as if you were the ‘user’). Diagram the critical path, and break it into pieces if necessary for the purpose of the iteration exercises.

Diverge Cycle (2 hours)

Repeat Diverge Cycle (2 hrs)

Daily Recap (30min)

Our goal is to explore as many possibilities as possible, regardless of how realistic, feasible or viable they may or may not be. From this explosion of opportunity comes insights made when considering the implications of radically different perspectives on and approaches to solving a problem. These insights can become valuable differentiating forces and the source of unique solution inspiration. Also, once we begin eliminating as many of these options as possible we are given reason to be more confident in the options we do move forward with because we have explored so many alternatives.

• Have a mindset of "Yes and"

• Constantly ask “How might we?”

Suggested Activities for Diverge

A warm up exercise to start generating ideas. People are given time to individually explore the problem however they choose to.

Crazy eights are meant to generate a lot of ideas really quickly. With a forced time limit for each sketch people need to think quickly. Doing this exercise repetitively generates a lot of varied ideas.

This exercise mimics a movie storyboard. You'll be drawing a flow for the user by using Post-its as frames and writing out out a description next to it.

This critique exercise is a way to get everyones input in a short amount of time. At the end of the exercise you'll have a heat map of the ideas people find really interesting.

This critique exercise is more open and allows for a more detailed conversation. It gives the person that came up with the idea to add any remaining details or correct any wrong interpretations.

Additional Activities for Diverge

3-12-3 is a good way to generate ideas in a big group and then start to converge them down. It is great to do after the Google Ventures Diverge Cycle when there seems to be more ideas and no really strong direction forward.

Supplies needed: Whiteboard, Markers

Estimated time: 15 min

Best to use when

How do you know which user story is most important? It depends on the problem you are solving in the sprint. For example:

>

• Helping people understand and get started with your product — you probably

  want to focus on the experience of a user encountering your product for the

  first time.

• Creating a new product concept — you probably want to look into the future and

  imagine the value proposition and core features for an engaged user.

• Improving conversion rate from a landing page — you probably want to

  understand why people land on your page and what their goals are.

• This step can be difficult and time-consuming, but it’s critical!

Instructions:

1. Starting with the Problem Statement as the first step, as a group,

   use your understanding of the Problem Statement to

   map out the steps of the user's journey through solving that problem

2. The Facilitator should stand at the whiteboard and draw the flow.

3. Keep adding steps until you've reached a solution.

Example

Supplies needed: None

Estimated time: 5 min

Best to use when

It's best to practice the pitch several times throughout the sprint, typically at the beginning of each day. It makes sure that everyone is staying in line with the original intent of the sprint encapsulated in the Problems Statement. It also allows the Product Owner to practice and refine the application's elevator pitch.

Instructions

1. The Product Owner should stand up and walk the sprint team through:

   • What is the Problem Statement / Job-to-be-done?

   • What is the business opportunity?

   • What is the market?

Supplies needed: Post-its, Sharpie

Estimated time: 20 min

Best to use when

Card sorting helps organize and understand how people perceive the information architecture for the application. It is best to use when there are a seemingly a lot of ideas and a lot to take in. Card sorting helps understand the many facets of a problem by giving you a top down view.

Card sorting will help you understand your users' expectations and understanding of your topics. It is often most useful once you have done some homework to find out about your users and understand your content.

Instructions

Open Card Sorting - Best for Understand

1. Take 5 minutes and have all participants write down as many ideas as possible on post-its. If people get stuck just have them write down what they think is the most important idea again and again till they come up with more.

2. Have everyone put their post-its up on the wall and take a min to read over them.

3. Start to find similarities between all of the ideas as they do that have them move around the post-its into similar groups.

4. Once there are a couple themes in the groupings add a title card for the group.

Closed Card Sorting - Best for Test

1. Write down the larger topic categories

2. Write down several content cards

3. Get 3–5 participants to do the exercise

4. Ask the participant to make sets of content cards that best correspond to

   each topic card

5. Observe and take notes of the participants' category-content mappings.

6. At the end of each participant’s session, take a picture of which content cards were matched to topic cards.

Example

Open Card Sorting

Closed Card Sorting

Supplies needed: Post-its, Sharpie, Whiteboard

Estimated time: 30 min

Best to use when

Instructions:

1. List out feature ideas on Post-its.

2. Divide up the whiteboard into 3 sections: Needs, Wants, and Desires

3. For the first feature,

   add it to Needs if it is critical to the job to be done,

   Wants if it is supplemental to the main job to be done,

   Desires if it outside of the main job to be done.

   while doing this.

4. Repeat for each of the remaining ideas.

5. Once all of the features are sorted,

   look at each section and the features in them

   and verify that each feature in is the appropriate section.

Examples

Supplies needed: Post-Its, Sharpie, Whiteboard

Estimated time: 30 min

Best to use when

Who, What, When, Where is best to use to find out what the different questions are surrounding a topic or problem. It helps uncover problems that are underlying or associated with the main problem statement It also helps transfer the responsibility of asking the right questions for the entire sprint team.

It works really well with a large group of people to get them all on the same page quickly.

Instructions

1. Divide up the whiteboard into four sections and

   give each a title of Who, What, When, and Where.

2. Start with Who.

   Each player should write down as many questions

   starting with "Who" related to the problem we want to solve.

   e.g. "Who spends hours manually manipulating data from one format to another?"

   "Who receives gifts they don't want on their birthday?"

3. Post all the answers under the who section of the whiteboard.

   Ask a few players to group similar questions.

4. answer the questions, mark them later for further research

   or reword them as an assumption that needs testing.

5. Repeat for each of the remaining questions

Supplies needed: Dot Stickers

Estimated time: 5 min

Best to use when

Instructions:

1. Have everyone post their ideas up on a wall evenly space and at eye level.

   Make sure each idea can stand on it's own and doesn't need an introduction or

   description.

3. Then, without speaking, everybody looks at the different storyboards and puts a

   sticker on every idea or part of an idea they like. There are no limits to how

   many stickers you can use, and I don’t even prevent people who want to brazenly

   vote for their own ideas.

4. By the end, you’ve got a kind of heat map, and some ideas are already standing out.

Examples

Supplies needed: None

Estimated time: 3 minutes for each sketch

Best to use when

It is best to do a Group Critique after a Silent critique has already been done. It allows for in-depth discussion around the idea. It gives time for people to say what they thought was good about the idea and for the person that had the idea to add any more detail to the thought.

Instructions:

2. Ask people what they liked about it.

3. Ask the person that had the idea to add any more explanation that they think

   hasn't been covered or if something was misunderstood.

Sometimes I like to do this step on a projector, especially if there are a lot of ideas to get through. I’ll take photos of each storyboard on my phone, upload them to Dropbox, put them in a Keynote file, then make notes about parts we like with outlines and text labels as we go through on the projector. This is easier for everyone to see, and you have a digital artifact of the ideas for later. The downside is the setup: count on 15 extra minutes to capture and upload photos.

Supplies needed: Easel Pad, Paper, Sharpie

Estimated time: 30 Minutes

Best to use when

3-12-3 is best to use for large groups of people that are looking to converge on to one single idea. It alleviates any large group think by splitting groups into teams of people. The time restraint is meant for people to be concise about their thinking and explanations.

This format for brainstorming compresses the essentials of an ideation session into one short format. The numbers 3-12-3 refer to the amount of time in minutes given to each of three activities: 3 minutes for generating a pool of observations, 12 for combining those observations into rough concepts, and 3 again for presenting the concepts back to a group.

Instructions

1. For the first 3 minutes, open individual brainstorming. This can take the form
2. Split everyone up into groups of 2 or 3. Give each group an Easel Pad so they

   can draw their UI large enough for the room to see.

3. For 12 minutes, let the group share their ideas they came up with in Step 1. Then they should converge in on one idea that they believe is the best and draw it on the Easel Pad.

4. Each group gets 3 minutes presents their idea to the larger group.

5. Conclude with either critique or another round switching up partners.

Examples

Estimated time: 5 min

Best to use when

Crazy Eights work really well for coming up with a lot of varied ideas or iterative ideas on an interface very quickly. The time limit doesn't allow for participants to weed out any crazy ideas. It works great early on in the ideation process because it loosens up creative muscles and generates lots of ideas quickly.

Instructions

1. Hand out blank paper and Sharpies to all participants.

2. Have everyone fold a sheet of paper in half 4 times so they all have 8 panels

   on the sheet.

3. Give 5 minutes total to draw eight sketches of user interaction,

   40 seconds for each panel.

   Sketches should be really rough.

4. Throughout the exercise continue to remind people of the time and make sure

   that it is clear which sketch they should be on.

5. Repeat as necessary.

Examples

Supplies needed: Whiteboard, Markers, Post-its

Estimated time: 30 minutes

Best to use when

It is best to always keep track of the assumptions that you and your team are making about your product through the life of the product. During the product sprint this should be done throughout all phases. It is best to analyze and figure out how to test the assumptions during Converge.

Instructions:

1. Have a dedicated space to collect Assumptions on the whiteboard.

2. Throughout the sprint have everyone write down assumptions

   that they are making or that they hear other people making

   and put them up on the whiteboard.

3. At the end of Converge, create a table with 3 columns:

   Assumption, Test, Validated if.

4. List out all of the assumptions that team is making.

5. For each assumption decide how you plan on testing

   to see if the assumptions are valid or not

   and how you know if that assumption is valid.

6. Repeat till all assumptions have a test for them.

Example

Supplies needed: Post-Its, Sharpie, Whiteboard

Estimated time: 30 min

Best to use when

Five whys should be used to get to the very root of a reasons for a problem. It also shows the relationships between several causes of the problem.

Instructions

1. Write down a specific problem

2. Ask the team to individually write down why that is happening.

3. Form a new problem from the answers the team gave.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 four more times or as much as necessary.

5. Analyze the results and form relationships between answers.

Example

• The vehicle will not start. (the problem)

• Why? - The battery is dead. (first why)

• Why? - The alternator is not functioning. (second why)

• Why? - The alternator belt has broken. (third why)

• Why? - The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and not replaced. (fourth why)

• Why? - The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule. (fifth why, a root cause)

Supplies needed: Blank computer paper, Post-its, Sharpie

Estimated time: 20 min

Best to use when

Storyboards are great to use when the group has had some time to think individually about the problem and many possible solutions to it. Storyboards allow people to develop those early ideas further by giving them more time to dive into details of the interaction.

Instructions:

The goal is to take the ideas we’ve generated so far and sketch an actual UI showing how a user would move through this part of the story — where they click, what info they enter, what they think, etc.

1. Start with a blank sheet of paper

   and put 3 sticky notes

   going down the side of the page.

2. Choose an idea that you had previously from another exercise

   to put more thought and detail into.

3. Each sticky note is one frame in the storyboard.

   The sticky note should be

   used to draw the action that is happening.

   Use the room on the paper to the

   side of the Post-it to give a brief explanation.

   Make sure that each frame is understandable without further verbal explanation.

4. Fill in each frame in the storyboard.

5. Give the storyboard a title that encapsulates what is happening.

6. Hang each story board on the wall with tape or a pin.

7. Have either a Silent Critique, a Group Critique or both.

Examples

Supplies needed: Whiteboard, Markers

Estimated time: 30min for review

Best to use when

A lot of ideas will be generated throughout the week. Some of the ideas will be pertinent to the tasks at hand, but others, although interesting, won’t be. Capture these good but not immediately relevant back burner ideas on a sticky note board.

Instructions

1. Have a dedicated space to collect back burner ideas on the whiteboard.

2. Throughout the sprint have everyone write down ideas that are not directly

   solving the job-to-be-done

   and put them up on the whiteboard.

3. As a team during the converge phase,

   review all the ideas that have been put

   up on the wall.

   Trash any that aren't relevant anymore.

4. Record all ideas in a separate document or Trello.

Example

Supplies needed: Whiteboard

Estimated time: 20 min

Best to use when

It is best to identify the job-to-be-done that the sprint is trying to solve as early in the process as possible. Identifying the problem will help to determine if there is a problem, if that problem is solvable, and how to solve that problem. This step will be the first step to answering this question: What is this product, and is it useful?

Instructions

1. The facilitator leads discussion by writing statements on the whiteboard for

   everyone to see.

2. Write down all of the potential problems that the user has.

   • What are all the jobs-to-be-done?

   • What is the problem that this product is going to solve?

   • What is the motivation behind what the user wants?

3. As a group decide which problem is the most critical.

4. Continue to refine language around the Problem Statement.

5. Leave up in a clear visible spot in the room so that it is easy to

   reflect back on.

Example

Supplies needed: Paper, Sharpie

Estimated time: 10–15 minutes

Best to use when

Instructions

If you’re not familiar with mind mapping already, I often describe it as writing down everything in your head with no specific formatting; or quiet individual brainstorming. You can write words and connect them or not, you can draw pictures or not — you basically can’t do it wrong.

1. Hand out blank sheets of paper and Sharpies to all participants.

2. Set the timer for 10 minutes.

3. Have everyone write down or draw everything in that they are thinking about.

   Keep the format free so that people feel comfortable to explore any and all ideas.

The high-fidelity wireframe at messy.design includes more actual content, specific typeface choices, and may include specific information on image dimensions, and even button styles. We tend to play with shades of grey rather than sticking to sheer black and white in order to lay out subtleties in contrast that will appear once color is applied, style the navigation, and really look at pairing typefaces in a space where color is not a conflicting option. In this case, our designers start to see the life of the site emerge before color and imagery are even an option. This step for us at messy.design moves the wireframe a little beyond the basic structural benefits, moving toward the life-like qualities of design, but without distracting from the focus of function.

Hi-Fidelity Tools

Cloud based pattern library. This is also a plugin that we leverage heavily in Sketch so that everyone has the most up to date design assets.

Zeplin is a perfect place to have an up-to-date repository for pixel-perfect comps which anyone can see and comment on. Additionally, Zeplin is used to share assets between designers and devs.

Activities for Prototype

HTML & CSS

Invision really great for being able to take mockups from Photoshop or Sketch and allow for users to click through to different states or pages. Invision allows for you to create a simple image map for your users. Because it takes mockups it allows for you to create designs that look more visually appealing or visually complete.

Case Study

Our prototype is much higher-fidelity than a prototype would typically be, but that was somewhat necessary for testing our hypothesis.

Before couples can address the details of planning a wedding (decoration, guests, caterers, dress, etc.), couples usually have to decide on a location and venue. The couple is filled with excitement; as the wedding day will usher forth a new life for the couple together. However, the couple might experience a bit of uncertainty as to how even to proceed planning their wedding. We want to capture couples at their “excitement” period and put aside all uncertainty and potential anxiety that the wedding planning process may cause. A customer’s initial engagement with our website should parallel his/her engagement with the wedding process in general.

With our prototype, we want to evaluate our ability to capture the excitement of a recently engaged person and leverage that excitement to create engagement with our website.

Activities for Validate and Learn

Gorilla Usability Testing

This is the most used form of testing. Bring in 4–6 potential users and show them the prototype that you made. Pay close attention to problems that they have and be sure to follow a script to cover the assumptions that you are testing. With their permission you can record these but it's best to see them as they happen.

A design exercise that guides us toward creating the most coherent information architecture of a product. During a card sorting session, participants are asked to associate two sets of flashcards by grouping them.

Survey Test

Fake landing page

Case study

Example: “Connie supplied us with three interviewees (2 were done online, 1 in person; 1 was recently married). Though the dataset was limited due to the background and interest of those we interviewed, we gained some important insight to help us build a superior wedding planning product. People’s complaints about competing wedding sites, such as The Knot, Wedding Wire, and Offbeat Bride, were about the lack of focus on those websites (too disorganized, too much information). They were most engaged by browsing things like wedding dresses, cakes etc.

While it is important for any newly engaged person to gain access to important information about the wedding planning process, some of these websites provided stress and anxiety as much as they did excitement about the “Big Day.” Furthermore, while acknowledging that the first step in their processes might be to contact friends and to think about location, these other websites presented an overwhelming wealth of information (such as on decoration and wear) that might be more informative later on in a couple’s wedding planning process after they have chosen the wedding location and venue.

The primary assumption we were testing for with our prototype was that we will be able to create an engaging, exciting an emotional experience that gets people fantasizing about their wedding through images, storytelling and high quality information. We chose to test for this because we believe that if we can engage and pull customers into the product in this way, we may be able to more successfully introduce rational planning, communication tools, and premium services once they move further down the engagement funnel. Through competitive analysis we also identified this emotional/aspirational experience as a means of differentiation in the market.

4 User Interviews (1hr each)

• Intro user to usability test (5 - 10min)

• Ask user research questions

• Our Prototype (5 - 10min)

• Recap & Prep for next interview (10min)

Consolidate Notes (30min)

At the end of all of the Interviews, gather everyone that watched and compare notes. Figure out where your assumptions were validated and where assumptions might have been invalidated. Decide whether you've validated enough to start building the application or start another sprint.

Write Sprint Summary (30min)

Sprint Summary: Where we came from

Example: “We began the design sprint with a product and business concept that had yet to be fleshed out with customer and market research, an investigation of potential business models, and prototypes with which to test the potential customer in order to validate the product’s value. While we initially had some ideas of what to build, we lacked a specific vision for how to harness software to 1) solve the main problem of planning a wedding and 2) sustain a viable business by optimizing its engagement with customers.”

Sprint Summary: What we got to

Example: “By the end of the Sprint, we had developed a clearer product vision and better understanding of the problem and our potential customers: the core problem is that for potential brides, grooms, and their loved ones, the experience of planning a wedding is stressful because of the lack of organized planning information available and because of the frictioned process of finding the right venue.

We analysed the existing wedding planning market and existing products in a competitive analysis of similar websites and products to understand how Great Engagements can differentiate itself from its competitors to create a product that provides customer value, generates customer engagement, and profits from revenue.

In trying to accomplish our goals of solving the customer’s wedding planning problem through software that generates revenue, we identified the riskiest assumptions and knowledge gaps we have during this process and validated those assumptions in the prototype and user-testing phase. We also identified several potentially viable business models and revenue streams to work towards validating. We consider it possible to generate revenue through customer premium subscription accounts.

To reflect our insights and test our assumptions, we built a simple prototype and tested it with individuals in and close to our target market and were able to get positive validation of the assumptions we intended to test.”

Sprint Summary: Major learnings/take aways

Example:

• We need to do further research on the viability of potential revenue streams

  • subscriptions

  • premium services (will people pay for these?)

    • full service venue visit planning/booking (make it a date!)

    • communication tools

    • wedding planning counselor/therapist

  • lead generation

  • referral bonuses

  • venue listing (charge venues to list their venue)

• We need to do further research on how we might source venues and venue info & photos

• Form the Prototype

  • The simple Madlib style form is engaging and makes sense.

  • People understood what Great Engagements is about (finding venues)

  • The large imagery and theme concept resonated with people and they found it

    more straightforward and inviting than existing and popular wedding

    planning sites.

Sprint Summary: Where to go next

Next steps following the design sprint:

Example:

• Address the remaining unknowns and assumptions through low-cost (consider time

  as well) research and interviews.

• Validate the primary value hypothesis; create a prototype of the venue page

  with an improved display and organization of planning information valuable for

  customers who have had/have trouble finding pertinent wedding-related

  information online.

• Refine the prototype to incorporate an email sign-up feature, host it live

  online, and drive traffic to the landing page to gauge public interest in the

  current landing page.

Maintenance and Improvements

If you are looking to contribute and are not sure where to start:

2. Make the necessary changes.

New Ideas

Previous Sprints: Photos, Examples & Case studies

The more examples that we have the better it will be to spread knowledge and experience of running the sprints. These are the steps for adding examples:

1. Add new project by duplicating the example project folder.

2. Edit the README in that folder and add any other assets that support the explanation of the sprint such as photos, documents, prototypes or videos.

3. Add references on the separate phases to the respective parts of the example.

Quick guide to submitting a Pull Request in GitHub:

1. Fork the repository.

2. Make your changes in a topic branch.

4. Rebase against origin/master, push to your fork and submit a pull request.