Have you ever created a product from scratch to launch? Have you ever experienced situations and conditions where they couldn't support your product development? This time, I'll present important material for aspiring product producers and programmers.
You're probably still confused about what needs to be done first and what comes next. There are "5 key words" that you need to know.
General Material Definition
Design, Sprint, Thinking
Design Thinking & Design Sprint
From these materials, let's discuss them one by one in general terms.
1. Design?
Design is a work process that has a user perspective and drives development based on your customers' specific needs.
"Methods and approaches differ depending on what you are developing but whether that involves processes in the healthcare sector or product development at a company we can say with certainty that design will help you to find new solutions."
2. Sprint?
Sprint (in the IT world) is an iteration of a continuous development cycle. In a Sprint, the planned amount of work must be completed by the team and ready for review.
3. Thinking?
Thinking is a cognitive activity that you use to process information, solve problems, make decisions, and create new ideas.
There are several types of thinking such as: Creative, Analytical, Critical, Concrete, Abstract, Divergent, Convergent, Sequential, and Holistic.
These 3 materials are just introductory materials. Let's move on to the main material on design development. But before getting to the core material, I want to present terminology (case examples) that are similar to the material to be presented.
Case Example
Let's say you have a cooking course to learn. You've prepared the tools required for it. You're confident and ready to learn! But you don't know where to start. Because you don't know where and when you should begin or do things.
Solution?
With the help of food recipes, you can start learning how to solve problems to cook your favorite food.
This case is similar to when we design solution ideas
Humans have different ways of thinking about solving their problems. Just like how people go to school - they can either walk or use vehicles to reach their destination.
Design Thinking?
Design Thinking is the tools, information, data, and problems needed to discover/understand user stories/requests to build design application thinking.
Design Sprint?
The core of this material is Design Sprint. Design Sprint is a framework (recipe) for teams of various sizes to solve and test design problems in 4–5 days. The idea is to define bigger problems into next problems that teams can solve or to understand problems to create user stories.
Background
Jake Knapp created the Design Sprint process at Google in 2010. He drew inspiration from many places, including product development culture and his own experience building products like Gmail and Hangouts.
The term product design has been widely used and popularized by IDEO, Apple, Google, and many other creative companies. IDEO pioneered the framework and methodology of design thinking, which Apple later adopted into their products. For quite a long time, this methodology remained buried as if it were a secret recipe.
However, Google Ventures, which oversees many startups, tried to implement a practical version of design thinking, which became known as Design Sprint.
Definition from the Founder's Experience Story
"At Google Ventures, we do product design work with startups all the time. Since we want to move fast and they want to move fast, we've optimized a process that gets us predictably good results in five days or less. We call it a product design sprint, and it's great for getting unstuck or accelerating projects that are already in motion."
"The sprint is a five-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers."
"We've found that magic happens when we use big whiteboards to solve problems. The room itself becomes a sort of shared brain for the team"
-Jake Knapp, Author of SPRINT and one of the inventors of the Design Sprint
General History of Innovation and Technology
In the era of Industry 1.0, innovation to solve existing problems using technology was a time when we all had many ideas that we could find solutions for, because technology was indeed thriving in that era.
Things Needed to Run Design Sprint
Open-Minded Thinking
The most important thing in this method is being Open-Minded. It would also be useful to watch this TED Talk by Tim Brown, where he urges designers to think broadly.
IDEO CEO Tim Brown mentions, "Any organization that wants to innovate, wants to be prepared to innovate, I think, has to have a few things in place. Perhaps the most important thing is methods for having an open mind".
Open-Minded isn't just about listening but also being able to adapt when there's new information or ideas. Similar to different perspectives like the very famous quote, "Is the glass half full or half empty?".
One meaning of that quote is positive and negative thinking. Malcolm Gladwell in his books like The Tipping Point and Blink always challenges us to see other perspectives from common human viewpoints.
Minimize Group Brainstorming
Sometimes it's very interesting when we discuss in a group, then ideas are discussed sporadically.
Sometimes before the presentation of ideas is finished, they're already challenged and criticized in such a way that it erodes genuine and unique ideas. And in the end, what happens is consensus/agreement, and usually such agreements are win-win solutions, not strong and characteristic solution ideas.
The spirit of design sprint is to minimize group brainstorming, where the portion for individuals is very large without having to be disturbed or criticized first, and afterwards give each team member the opportunity to present ideas, opinions, solutions as a whole, listen carefully to all presentations and keep cooling down until truly understanding the presentation.
Design Sprint Method
Comparison between Design Sprint 1.0 vs Design Sprint 2.0
The abbreviation from this image is the initial front name of days in English (Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday-Friday). Version 2.0 will continue for 4 days compared to 5 days. What about the remaining day? We'll discuss that later. What will be presented is the latest version (2.0).
Day 1 (Monday) - Map & Ask Experts
Basically, "Monday" is the day where all stakeholders (all members) together brainstorm about the problems faced and generate several solutions that can be implemented.
Day 2 (Tuesday) - Sketch & Decide
Tuesday is the day where all team members choose the best solutions to be applied to the product idea to be created. And on this day, some members can also draw storyboards (system flow ideas for the product) to be made.
Day 3 (Wednesday) - Prototype
Wednesday is the day for the team to create their ideas by making prototypes (can be in the form of design drawings or interaction designs). Interaction flow designs can be made using several software options such as: Adobe XD, Figma, etc.
Day 4 (Thursday) - Test
Today is the day to test the design ideas that have been created by the prototyping team from ideas that have been implemented in the previous days. The purpose of today is to evaluate the product ideas to be made and created for prospective users. The most important stakeholders involved are Testers and Customer Support.
So, what about the remaining day?
The remaining day can usually be used for Sprint Retrospective (Meeting about Design Sprint) or Testing Extension (Additional Prototyping Testing Time). Testing Extension can occur if the number of testers is too large for one day. Sprint Retrospective is usually used by almost all startups or companies. It's done to evaluate the sprint that has been conducted for a week, to know the smoothness, problems, etc. Usually, this is used as an option if the design sprint will be done again or is sufficient for further development.
Is this the last day for design sprint?
Not yet, if user feedback and results are not good in terms of tester experience. The purpose of Design Sprint is to generate/define user stories that you can use in further development to build applications called "SDLC" (Software Development Life Cycle).
Understanding Roles in Design Sprint
Design Sprint cannot be done without a team. Let's look at some of the most important roles for Design Sprint.
Stakeholders can have various roles, which can be adjusted by the Sprint Master, as shown in this image.
Decider can be a leader who will create the product (CEO, Product Owner, Project Manager, etc.)
Facilitator can be a manager or product manager.
And there are many more, such as: Tester, Secretary, Scrum Master, UI/UX Designer, etc.
Is Design Sprint 2.0 Widely Implemented?
Many companies such as Spotify, Mozilla, and Slack from Microsoft Teams have already implemented it for their products.
This is an example of a product from Slack. They have created an application for message communication from Mars Robot NASA to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory team. You can see the original article here.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Design Sprint will help the entire team get clear goals and direction. Using this method is very helpful in creating:
- New products
- Product feature additions, such as creating professional websites or creating features for professional websites
- Workflows
- Business and solving problems with existing products
Well, from here, isn't it quite simplified even for programmers? Especially in the process of creating websites or new features within them. Existing ideas must really be needed and validated before they can be immediately executed.
And to implement Design Sprint, we need to create a clear team structure with each person's work, and a Sprint Master who can control all teams until the design sprint is completed.
Without validation, existing features or products won't last long.
Presentation Material Module
References
- https://www.belighted.com/design-sprint
- http://www.letshackity.com/en/sprint-design-sprint-vs-design-thinking-agile-scrum-lean-startup-methodologies/
- https://medium.com/@iosipratama/product-design-sprint-101-bahasa-indonesia-4b2acde80540
- https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/design-sprint-2/
- https://ajsmart.com/design-sprint-2-0/
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