Sprint book notes
By Jake Knapp
Amazon
- Map/target - stories, problems, experts
- Sketch - remix & improve
- Decide - Rumble, storyboard
- Realistic Prototype
- Real test - Learn
See book for checklists/shopping list
- Intro
- Can have multiple prototypes
- Start with the end - what’s the question you need answered? use design Sprints for very tough issues
- High stakes - big problem, make sure you’re pointed in the right direction
- Not enough time - deadline, good solutions fast
- Stuck - hard to start, lost momentum, need a fresh approach
- prototype - test - feedback
- Team
- Decider (or two) - core values, mission, make sure it’s the right project
- Finance expert (CEO, CFO BD) - how to make $$$
- Marketing (CMO, PR, community manager) - messaging/story
- Customer (research, sales, VOC, support)
- Tech/logistics (CTO, engineer x2)
- Design (designer, PM)
- Bring the troublemaker
- Bring a facilitator (nonvoting, unbiased, just process + summarization)
- Outside experts
- 7 max day to day!
- Time & Space
- No interruptions, no devices
- 10am-5pm (9am Friday)
- Whiteboards make you smarter + markers + timer
- The “shared brain"
- Monday
- Start with the end - make a map - ask the experts - pick a target
- Define your long-term goal and write it on the board
- ie More patients enrolled in trials
- Sprint questions - write below goal
- i.e. Can we find matches fast enough, and Will clinics change their workflow?
- What questions do we want to answer
- What has to be true to meet our long term goal
- Pre-mortem (travel into the future, what caused your project to fail?)
- Find assumptions and turn them into questions
- To reach customers, what has to be true? They have to trust our expertise.
- Phrased as a question: “Will customers trust our expertise?"
- Make a map on a new board
- Simple, customer-centric
- Start with the END - long-term goal, turn problems into questions (above)
- Key actors / story w/ beginning, middle, end
- 5-15 steps
- List of actors (put in arrowed boxes)
- Write the ENDING
- Word + arrows, very simple!
- Ask for help/confirmation
- Ask the experts
- Bring in people who didn’t make the team for 30 minute consults on your questions, map, etc.
- Strategy (decider interview), VOC (support), How Things Work (baristas, oncologists, experts)
- Introduce the sprint, review the white boards with them, open the door (have them tell you everything), ask questions - “Why” “Tell me more about that” “Remind Me"
- Use “How Might We” phrasing (IDEO) - convert into questions
- Open ended, optimistic
- Keeps you from jumping to conclusions too quickly
- Puts all ideas on a level playing field - easy to read, can digest the whole wall at once
- 30-100 sticky notes at the end of all interviews
- Organize into Themes on a board, including a “Misc” theme - should only take 10 minutes
- Dot voting - two per person, four for the Decider - vote on the most useful HMW questions - can vote twice for the same note
- Take the notes that win and put them on your Map in the right place
- One Target area will start to jump out
- Target
- Should jump right out
- One customer, one moment on the map
- Place on the map w/ the biggest opportunity
- Should match one of the sprint questions
- Tuesday
- Remix and improve on existing ideas - Sketch (4 step process)
- Remix & Improve
- Make a list of favorite products from new industries, shelved projects, etc
- Lightning demos - post-its for features
- Remix & Improve - focus on one or a few parts of the map
- 10-70 ideas total
- Sketch
- 10-12 total
- Paper + pen is a great equalizer
- Makes it concrete, w/ details, easier to convey, no miscommunication
- Work alone, together - No group think!
- Notes (20 mins), 2) Ideas (20 mins), 3) crazy-8s (8 mins), 4) Solution Sketch (30+ mins)
- Notes on goal, map, HMWs, lightning demos
- Look at references: materials on computers if needed
- Ideas: doodles, sample headlines, diagrams, etc
- circle your favorites
- Crazy 8s: Sketch a few variations of each of your favorites, 60 seconds each - consider alternatives (fold a piece of paper 3 times, into 8 squares)
- Solution sketch: Self-explanatory, anonymous, words matter, catchy title
- Don’t review until tomorrow!!
- Facilitator: Find Customers for Friday
- Craigslist
- Network
- 5 interviews, 60 minutes
- $100 gift card
- Screening survey - thesprintbook.com
- Wednesday
- Decide on one solution - storyboard
- Decide
- No back and forth - solutions, critique, decide, all silently
- The sticky decision
- Art museum - sketches stuck up on the wall w/ tape
- Heat map - small stickies for good ideas/interesting parts
- Don’t talk - put dots next to parts you like - write questions/concerns on stickies below - move on to next sketch and repeat
- Speed critique + stickies for Big ideas
- 3 minute timer - Facilitator talks through the sketch and calls out standout ideas, review questions/concerns (recorded on stickies below sketch if necessary) - creator reveals identity and explains any missed ideas
- Straw poll - big dots
- Everyone gets one vote with a big dot
- Remind everyone of long-term goal and sprint questions
- err on the side of risky ideas with big potential
- 10 minute timer
- Private write down your choice - whole sketch or just one idea from a sketch
- Place votes on sketches
- Explain each vote (1 minute per person)
- Supervote from Decider
- Decider gets 3 supervote dots
- Any sketch with a supervote, even if it’s the only vote, goes into the prototype
- Rumble
- 2 prototypes battle it out with customers
- Note and vote - brainstorm substitute if you need to get quick ideas and elect a winner (i.e. a fake brand name or something like that)
- Each team member gets a piece of paper and a pen
- 3 minutes to write down ideas
- 2 minutes to edit list of ideas into top 2-3
- Write top ideas on board
- 2 minutes to review
- Each person votes for favorite with one dot
- Decider makes final decision
- Storyboard
- 10-15 panels, 2x a piece of printer paper each (17”x11”)
- Go 1-2 steps upstream for the start (i.e. blog post, app store)
- Present alongside competitors
- Avoid new ideas and non-critical stuff
- Just enough detail, decider decides - take risks!
- Keep the story to 15 minutes or less
- Avoid decision fatigue - be quick
- Thursday
- Realistic Prototype - fake it!
- Fake it
- Just enough to learn, get real reactions
- Storyboard - it’s a facade
- Prototype mindset - illusion, build in a day, just real enough, don’t get invested/fall in love with your solution - learn fast
- Disposable, but must appear real
- Goldilocks quality - people must react, not realize it’s fake and move into feedback mode
- Keynote - for fake iPad apps
- Prototype
- Pick the right tools - fast
- Keynote, templates, InVision, 3D Printing, brochures
- Divide & Conquer
- Makers (2), stitcher (1), writer (1), asset collector (1), interviewer (1)
- Stitch it together
- Tight, coherent, believable
- Trial run
- 3pm, interviewer is the audience
- Keep them objective - invite the Decider
- Friday
- Interview and Learn
- Small data
- 5 is the magic number of interviews (Nielsen)
- 1 hour each, 1:1, whole team watches in a different room (webcam), 30 minute debrief breaks
- Capture the why - why things do or don’t work - just ask them!
- Interview
- The Five-Act Interview
- Friendly welcome
- Thanks for coming! This is informal, not testing you, testing the product, will start with background questions
- General, open-ended context questions
- What kind of work do you do, how long have you been doing that, what do you do when you’re not working - get more specific towards your individual product/the industry it’s in
- Intro to prototypes
- Would you look at some prototypes? Some things might not work, I’ll let you know, I didn’t design this so it won’t hurt my feelings, please think aloud,
- Detailed tasks to get them reacting
- Open-ended, how would you decide if you want to try this, what is this, what is this for, what do you think of that, what do you expect that will do, what’s going through your mind, what are you looking for, what would you do next/why
- Quick debrief on overall thoughts/impressions
- How does this compare to what you know, what do you like, what do you dislike, how would you describe this to a friend, if you had three magic wishes to improve the product, what would they be, how would you compare this to different products, pros/cons, which parts would you combine to create a new/better version, which one worked better for you/why
- Be a good host, smile a lot
- Ask open-ended questions - avoid multiple-choice questions
- Ask who what when where why how
- Ask broken questions
- Customer: Hmm!
- Interviewer: So, what….is….(trail off into silence)
- Curiosity mindset
- Always ask why
- Make yourself friendlier - smile, lean in, don’t cross your arms
- Learn
- Listen together, take notes
- Board notes w/ stickies - one box per interview, organize by prototype sections or sprint questions
- Quotes, observations, interpretations - pros/cons/neutrals in green/red/black
- Take breaks
- Look for patterns - take your own detailed notes on the board
- Answer your sprint questions! Yay!
- Plan for what’s next
- Liftoff!
- Map out the problem
- Agree on an initial target
- Work independently
- Make crisp decisions
- Prototype
- Test!