The revival of the Design Sprint
It’s clear that our current economic situation is difficult, to say the least. Both in the US and in Mexico (where I’m working), interest rates are increasing and inflation is peaking. The ‘golden era’ we went through in the tech sector during 2021 and 2022, seems to be long gone. Across the board, companies are facing budget cuts and layoffs and projects get frozen due to ongoing market uncertainty.
What the future brings, is just as uncertain: will 2023 show an upward financial trend or are we getting ourselves ready for a larger taste of the ‘bitter pill’? We’ll find out. Despite all the bad news, there is some good news: the Design Sprint is back!
Design Sprints: a beautiful innovation tool
A design and innovation tool which always has been very popular, is the Design Sprint: a 3 to 5-day (intense) workshop, which helps teams to map, sketch and prototype new solutions. Originally coined by Jake Knapp and friends, the design sprint offers strategical and tactical exercises to go from a ill-defined problem, to a concrete, well-defined solution in just 5 days.
This tool always has been popular among clients I worked with. It’s an excellent way to kickstart a project, acting as ‘catalyst’ for the project execution. Through the 5 stages (map, sketch, decide, prototype and test), companies get a glimpse of the future (digital) with a minimal effort.
A second life
The design sprint is not something new, as a matter a fact, I have been running Design Sprints since 2016. Then, it proved to be a good tool too and the clients I worked with, loved the ‘novelty’ of it.
What is new, is that this framework has really proven its value over the years and I am pleasantly surprised it’s making a ‘comeback’ in projects I’m involved in.
But… is it really that surprising? In an economic downturn like we’re going through now, it is kind of obvious that companies want a low cost, effective solution to start their digital transformation, or at least define a ‘north star’ of where they want to be in say, 1–3 years. In that respect, the Design Sprint is one of the best activities to start with.
Besides the fact that companies can turn abstract, fuzzy problems into concrete, tangible designs (which is awesome!), the outcomes of a sprint are also often used internally to get budget and sponsoring for Design and IT projects: by showing senior management potential solutions to their problems — rather than lengthy PowerPoint decks that only discuss the problem — chances of getting budget freed up to invest in the future, increase.
Even in difficult economic times, it’s important to show organizational leaders what the future brings and how digital platforms can help catapult their position in the market, to greater heights. And The Design Sprint is a great lever in that catapult to reach those heights.
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This article was written by Frank van de Ven, CXO at Umvel.com.
Get in touch with me on LinkedIn here.
