Every organization has at least one big hairy problem that they’ve been working on for months or years. It’s a problem that, if they could solve it, would jump them ahead of competition, significantly improve quality, or provide significant value in some other way.

If they could solve it.

If they… if you could have solved it, you would have by now.

This is where the power of a Design Sprint shines, but the best part is that the solution to that big hairy problem you’ve been wrestling with is only a part of the value you’ll get form a Design Sprint.

The Value of a Design Sprint

Design Sprints provide value in five key areas, each are equally valuable.

Promotes a Human-Centered Culture

We’ve all heard it, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” and human-centered culture sits at the top of that food chain, but it can be hard to find concrete ways to instill this into the ways you work.

Design Sprints are one answer to this problem.

Design Springs are, well, designed from the ground up with humans in mind.

Customers (who are humans!) are baked in at every opportunity from the initial empathy building to the final prototype testing. Design sprints are an empathy building powerhouse for your team, linking them to customers in meaningful ways that will impact the way they work far into the future.

Your people (also humans) are also considered in the psychological safety that’s part of the DNA of the workshop as well as the science backed methods that create connection and unlock creativity and innovation. The sprint will demonstrate the power of cross-functionality in the way you work and create the connections your people need to ensure the collaborative culture leaks out into the larger organization.

Alignment

One of the biggest factors in the failure of large initiatives is a lack of alignment.

Design Sprints weave alignment into the who process. At every point the team is referring to the customer needs, the definition of success, and the goals of the sprint. This keeps the team hyper focused and purposeful in a way other approaches cannot replicate.

As the team moves from sprinting back to a more measured pace, the alignment created in the sprint can be carried forward. This allows the team to be value focused rather than process or role focused.

There is also an opportunity, after the close of the sprint, to role that alignment out to the larger organization and to demonstrate the mindsets and behaviors the made it possible.

Ways-of-Working

Especially when you are running your first Design Sprint, you have an opportunity to demonstrate a new way of working within your organization. This is an opportunity to introduce principles from Lean, Agile, and Design Thinking in a truly concrete way and create some enthusiasm.

With some preparation, you can role the new working principles from the Design Sprint into the work that follows and create momentum for a transformation.

Speed and Cost Savings

This one is simple but powerful.

When working with a new client, we listen for the problems that have been lingering for a while. People have been working on them for months, but no solution has been successfully implemented.

The reality is, almost every company has these lingering and tough problems that just seem to eat resources and burn money.

These are the problems design sprints were made to solve or meaningfully impact in just a few days. While the five days of a design sprint are expensive, they are vastly cheaper than the months wasted, the customer trust eroded, and the culture opportunities missed.

The Solution

I listed the solution last because out of everything listed above that comes out of a design sprint, it might actually be the least valuable part, which is saying something. Additionally, the final solution is not a guaranteed outcome, what is guaranteed is meaningful progress.

In a design sprint, you will build and test a prototype of a solution. That prototype may “fail” in that it might not be exactly what you need. But, as someone Nelson Mandela once said “I never lose, I either win or learn” and this applies to design sprints.

The customer insights and relationships you build in the design sprint will launch your solution forward regardless of how well your prototype performs and I’ve never seen a design sprint that didn’t provide priceless insights.

Wrap Up

The value of a design sprint is clear and the organizations that learn to harness that value have a significant advantage over those that continue with traditional approaches.

That said, running a successful design sprint isn’t easy. The preparation and support needed is significant, although worth it, and is also the topic of our next article which is coming soon!

If you would like help with your own design sprint please reach out and grab some time to chat and strategize, free of charge : https://meetings.hubspot.com/jl-heather/workshop-planning-call

Also, check out our other workshops here: https://centered.work/workshops