I wrote a story, Twyla’s Design Sprint Journey a few weeks ago and the Google Ventures design team graciously agreed to host it on their Sprint Stories publication. I can’t say enough good things about those guys and they continue to impress me with their generosity and focus on building community around the Design Sprint process.
Design Thinking champions two powerful approaches: Design Sprints and Workshops, vital for driving innovation and solutions with speed and precision. This guide elaborates on their integration into the Design Thinking framework, offering a blueprint for designers, managers, and innovators to exploit these methods effectively. Design Sprints, introduced by Google Ventures, provide a fast-paced, structured process that accelerates from concept to user feedback in a week. It involves stages like Understand, Diverge, Decide, Prototype, and Test, each dedicating a day to dive deeply into problem-solving phases with intense focus. The preparatory phase is pivotal, requiring clear problem identification, diverse team formation, logistical planning, and setting an inspirational workspace. In execution, Design Sprints engage in understanding user needs, broad ideation, focused decision-making, rapid prototyping, and conclusive user testing, thus encapsulating a microcosm of the entire Design Thinking process within a condensed timeline. Meanwhile, Workshops offer flexible, intensive sessions tailored to delve into specific Design Thinking facets, emphasizing engagement, creativity, and effective facilitation.
What is a Design Sprint? Who should run one, and why? If you want to run a Design Sprint but are not a designer, that isn’t a problem.
The Design Sprint is a staple structure in the world of facilitation for solving big challenges. It’s a five-day process, initially developed at Google Ventures, used for validating ideas and tackling a business problem.
