We have Monday morning, it starts. The first day in our Design Sprint. Our goal for today is to recognize and define our goal. After the team has come together we start to get to know each other a little bit as long as it has not happened before. As already described in the previous article, our team should be as diverse as possible and come from different areas. But it can also be an advantage to have certain roles on board. For example, this could be someone who is familiar with accounting and budgets. Or the management can contribute its part to it. Not as decision makers but the different ways of thinking of the roles can contribute to an early and very mature result.
Now that our team has come together and found accommodation in our Sprint Room. (I will write another extra article about the room, because it should have some characteristics as well) Let’s have a look at what should happen on our first day. Time is short and the tasks are big, so let’s get started.
Design Sprint Monday
We have been assigned a problem case in the company, a problem which again and again significantly impedes appearance and operation. By a further development a clear improvement of the work steps can be achieved. But where it hangs exactly is not directly obvious and should be analyzed more exactly. Let us come to the first step.
Long-term goal
Setting the actual goal. What do we actually want to do? So that everyone has the same understanding of what we want to do and what the problem looks like, we make a small exchange in the team to discuss and define the task. Our long-term goal is determined and recorded on a large board. The Problem Statement.
Sprint Map
Now that we have aligned ourselves, we need a plan. A so-called sprint map that helps us to coordinate our analyses around the problem. Processes, stakeholders and milestones play a central role here. It’s best to take a large whiteboard and start creating your sprint map on it. This should help us to keep the analysis permanently in mind. This also helps not to lose focus on the problem. We will also use the map from time to time during the week.
Expert Interview
In order to be able to set up our map as accurately and completely as possible, it can be advantageous to conduct the first interviews with users and experts. We need to build up as much and as broad a knowledge as possible in order to understand the problem as well as possible. The interviews should be somewhat prepared but not too precise. Let the users simply tell their stories. However, we should limit ourselves to a handful of interviews so that this is not drawn into infinity. Time is important. After a few interviews you’ll notice how your understanding continues to evolve. Document your results and let them flow into your map. However, the answers should also be hung on a separate wall to be available later.
How might we
Now that some time has passed, it’s time to consider the first approaches to solving the problem. After we have spent the whole morning understanding the problem, we can now use our newly acquired knowledge to develop the first approaches to a solution. A nice method to collect the first ideas here is the How Might We Method as described in one of our articles. I will link to the corresponding article below.
Define goal
At the end of our first day we have already achieved a lot. We have dealt with the problem, tried to understand it with the help of interviews and have written down all our thoughts on our Sprint Map. Our current understanding of the problem is visualized on our Sprint Map. And we have already come up with the first approaches to a solution. A large collection of many HMW posts is now available for further processing.
At the end of the day we should take a closer look at the work and take a look back at today. Are we on the right track? What is our impression? Now you can see again that we have the right goal in mind. Tomorrow it will go on. Then we look at further ideas and solutions.
How Might We article
