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Erik's Design Sprint Guide
This is an overview of how to conduct a remote process that accelerates a problem or idea into a client-tested solution in just 5 days.
I've started with Google Ventures' remote design sprint, and adjusted it to be a better fit for the teams that I've worked with. I'll be using their book and resources as a foundation, and building off of them.
In my experience, it hasn't been realistic to ask for five full days of time from the design sprint team, but I've found that we can get awesome results in half of that time. So, I recommend utilizing video calls to devote roughly 3-4 hours on Day 1, 2, and 3 -- then about 2-3 hours on Day 5. Prototyping on Day 4 will likely be done by individuals on the design sprint team, but will not require the whole team. I've been the prototype designer on the sprints that I've facilitated.
Design sprint collaboration and organization will take place in the virtual whiteboard Mural, utilizing a design sprint-specific template.
Getting Started
Identify your team (max 7 people)
- Facilitator: the moderator, timekeeper, and guide of the sprint
- Decider: Either the Director of Technology or Product Manager
- The remainder shouldn’t necessarily be the product team. Diverse expertise and perspectives are valued highly for sprint teammates.
Having 7 people on your team may seem like a lot, and while it will cause activities to take longer, you want that many teammates. I've found that people often need to hop off a little early, or are out of the office for a day or two of the sprint. This gives you plenty of great brainpower and allows you to field a full team, even when someone is on the bench.
Identify your experts: select 2-3 people from within the company, close collaborators, or other key knowledgable folks
Before Sprint Week
- Try out the whiteboard software with your team using a fun template
- Ask your team to get ahold of writing utensils and printer paper
Scheduling
Find a four hour time slot that works best for your team. I've found that 1pm-5pm EST works great. You may not need all 4 hours, but it's there if you need it. If people have to hop off a little early, then that's fine
- Schedule design sprint meetings
- Schedule expert interviews, using same video call link as design sprint meeting from day one
- Schedule usability testing meetings
Day 1: Map
Schedule (assuming that you're doing a 1-5pm time range)
- 1:00pm: Introduction
- 1:05pm: Long Term Goal
- 1:15pm: Sprint Questions using Note N’ Vote
- 1:30pm: Note N’ Map
- -> 10 minutes for creating maps
- -> 10 minutes for sharing maps
- 1:50pm: Combine Maps
- -> 10 minutes for voting on maps
- -> 15 minutes for creating single map
- 2:15pm: Expert Interviews & HMWs (With 3 experts, 15 mins per expert, and 5 mins between each)
- 3:15pm: Take a 15 minute break
- 3:30pm: Organize HMW’s
- -> 5 minutes for selecting each individual's HMWs
- -> 10 minutes for organizing
- -> 10 minutes for voting
- 3:55pm: Target
- 4:15pm: Wrap Up
Tips & Takeaways
- This is by far the most jam-packed day of the sprint, and it can feel a bit overwhelming. Try to be flexible with time, and don't worry if one activity spills over a bit. Make it through day one and the rest of the sprint will feel easier!
- Free Mural hack: Need voting? Copy and paste an array of icons onto the boards that require voting, and have your team paste/drag them onto sticky notes. The paid voting feature is much better, but this will work in a pinch!
- It may be tricky to get experts up-to-speed on your sprint progress, start with just the long term goal before sharing sprint questions and the map
- Encourage experts to send you any more ideas or questions that they have post-interview
- For expert interviews, add the main design sprint video meeting link to their calendar invites so that they join your in-progress meeting. This is great with Google Calendar.
Day 2: Sketch
Schedule:
- 1:00pm - Gather Lightning Demo content
- 1:15pm - Lightning Demos (5 mins each)
- 1:50pm - Take a 15 minute break
Four Step Sketch
- 2:05pm - Notes
- 2:25pm - Ideas
- 2:45pm - Crazy 8s
- 3:00pm - Take a 15 minute break (optional)
- 3:15pm - Solution Sketch
- 4:00pm - Wrap up and ask team to send you their solution sketches
Tips & Takeaways
- Ask your sprint team to gather some lightning demo content before the day two meeting starts, this will give people extra time to find great content
- Encourage your sprint team to do a separate sheet for each of the 3 panels of the Solution Sketch, if they'd like some more space to get their ideas down
- Allow sprint teammates to send you their solution sketch later if they have to leave early, but be wary because it's super important that they find time to do it!
Day 3: Decide
Schedule:
- 1:00pm - Art Museum
- 1:15pm - Speed Critique
- 2:00pm - Straw Poll
- 2:05pm - Supervote
- 2:20pm - Take a 15 minute break
- 2:35pm - Storyboarding
- -> Give team 10 minutes to lay out the first 4-6 steps of the storyboard
- -> Vote on the single best storyboard
- -> Move the best individual storyboard onto the main storyboard
- -> Repeat as many times as necessary
- 3:35pm - Storyboard Assembly and Finalization
- 4:00pm - Wrap Up
Tips & Takeaways
- Leave lots of time for storyboarding! This can take a while, and the more input and organization you can accomplish together, the easier it will be to prototype it.
Day 4: Prototype
- Review storyboard, sprint questions, solution sketches, and lightning demos
- Design prototype in Figma or Sketch
- Connect screens together for navigation
- Run prototype by a few design sprint teammates to do a quick feedback+design iteration
- Confirm usability testing meetings
Tips & Takeaways
- This is a super long day that can be stressful as the clock ticks to complete the prototype. Set yourself up for success by clearing your designer's schedule as much as possible and designing as a pair or small team if possible.
- I'm a perfectionist and have an urge to make my prototypes high fidelity, which tends to be exhausting, or even impossible given the time constraint. Focus on getting the UX flow and sprint questions testable before making it pretty!
Day 5: Test
- 10am-3pm - Usability testing meetings
- -> 30 minutes per testing slot
- -> Record results in Sprint Scorecard
- 3:00pm - Do group wrap questions & share them
- 4:00pm - Wrap up, plan next steps
Tips & Takeaways
- I've only been able to do this testing internally, but I've still had solid results and insights. For companies with a large team and folks that may be similar to your target users and clients, I recommend testing with them in order to make scheduling and testing smoother and easier.
- Have each sprint teammate take notes on the Sprint Scorecard
Resources
- Selfie Sketch Icebreaker / Mural training
- Mural's official design sprint template
- Remote design sprint overview
- Mural Video Voting Tool Demo
- Storyboard Guide
Template messages for gathering your team
Here are email / message templates for each type of user involved in the design sprint process, to help get them all on board and prepared.
Explanation message for team
On <date>, we will be leading a remote “design sprint”, and we’d love for you to be a team member in the process!
What the heck is a design sprint?
The big idea with the Design Sprint is to build and test a prototype in just five days. We’ll take a small team, clear some time in the schedule for a week, and rapidly progress from problem to tested solution using a proven step-by-step checklist. It’s like fast-forwarding into the future so we can see how customers react before we invest all the time and expense of building a real product.
But the Design Sprint is not just about efficiency. It’s also an excellent way to stop the old defaults of our work and replace them with a smarter, more respectful, and more effective way of solving problems that brings out the best contributions of everyone on the team and helps us spend our time on work that really matters.
The problem we’ll be tackling? <insert problem>
The design sprint team (that’s you!) will utilize Zoom and devote roughly 3-4 hours on Day 1, 2, and 3 -- then 2-3 hours on Day 5 for testing and wrap up. We’ve chosen you to be on the team because of your diverse perspective and expertise in the scope of our problem.
Let us know what questions you have! We hope you’re available and can’t wait to solve problems with you.
Explanation message for experts
On <date> we will be leading a remote “design sprint”, and we’d love for you to be an expert in the process!
What the heck is a design sprint?
The big idea with the Design Sprint is to build and test a prototype in just five days. We’ll take a small team, clear some time in the schedule for a week, and rapidly progress from problem to tested solution using a proven step-by-step checklist. It’s like fast-forwarding into the future so we can see how customers react before we invest all the time and expense of building a real product.
But the Design Sprint is not just about efficiency. It’s also an excellent way to stop the old defaults of our work and replace them with a smarter, more respectful, and more effective way of solving problems that brings out the best contributions of everyone on the team and helps us spend our time on work that really matters.
The problem we’ll be tackling? <insert problem>
As an expert (that’s you!) you will utilize Zoom and devote roughly 30 minutes on Day 1 with the design sprint team to answer questions about the problem at hand. We’ve chosen you to be an expert because of your diverse perspective and expertise in the scope of our problem.
Let us know what questions you have! We hope you’re available and can’t wait to solve problems with you.
Explanation message for testers
On <date>, we leading a remote “design sprint”, and we’d love for you to be a usability tester in the process!
What the heck is a design sprint?
The big idea with the Design Sprint is to build and test a prototype in just five days. We’ll take a small team, clear some time in the schedule for a week, and rapidly progress from problem to tested solution using a proven step-by-step checklist. It’s like fast-forwarding into the future so we can see how customers react before we invest all the time and expense of building a real product.
But the Design Sprint is not just about efficiency. It’s also an excellent way to stop the old defaults of our work and replace them with a smarter, more respectful, and more effective way of solving problems that brings out the best contributions of everyone on the team and helps us spend our time on work that really matters.
The problem we’ll be tackling? <insert problem>
As a usability tester (that’s you!) you will utilize Zoom and devote roughly 15 minutes on Day 5. We’ve chosen you to be a tester because of your diverse perspective and relationship with the problem at hand.
Let us know what questions you have! We hope you’re available and can’t wait to share our prototype with you.
