Quickly understand if you are solving the (right) problem and get user feedback. This guide is a summary of all information I could find online about the design sprint methodology with checklists and all the tools to hold a successful design sprint (includes schedule, checklists, templates and links).
About this Guide 📕
First off, if you want to hold a design sprint at your company or with your client, just get the book. This summary is by no means my own work, it’s simply a collection of all the tools and guides from the official Sprint team and Google docs I have used to hold my own design sprints. All referral links are the same as the official design sprint documents. This summary is intended as an introduction to newcomers and as a review for seasoned sprinters as a quick all-in-one summary to freshen up. Resources at the bottom. The affiliate amazon links are not mine, they come from the official sprint guides.
Design Sprint Overview 🦅
What is a design sprint?
The design sprint is a methodology invented at Google by Jake Knapp and refined with John Zeratsky and the GV design team. The design sprint has become a core tool for UX design in Silicon Valley to “solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days”. Each day corresponds to a different phase:
Monday — Map out the problem and choose where to focus
Tuesday — Sketch out competing solutions
Wednesday — Decide which ideas make the cut
Thursday — Build a prototype
Friday — Test the prototype
Why should you do a design sprint?
Quickly understand if you are solving the (right) problem and get user feedback. It also ensures user-centric design. The motto is learn fast fail fast.
Who can use a design sprint?
Anyone — Startups, mid-sized companies, corporations. Google, Harvard and and even the United Nations use design sprints.
The design sprint team should consist of about 4–7 people and includes the following roles:
Decider — The person who has full authority to make decisions (often the CEO). They call the shots. Whether that’s the CEO or senior executive, they should be involved in the discussions early on since their decision will influence the sprint goal and the final product.
Facilitator —The person who manages the sprint. They are the time keeper. They keep track of the team’s progress during the Design Sprint and ensure that everyone is playing their part. They need to remain unbiased in their opinion when it comes to decision time.
Optional:
- Marketing expert. The person who is skilled at crafting your company’s messaging to your customers.
- Customer service. They interact with your customers on a regular basis and truly understand who your users are.
- Design expert. They design the product and help to realise the vision of the goal.
- Tech expert. They are in the best position to understand what your company can build and deliver.
- Financial expert. They can explain how much the project will cost and how much the company can expect to get from it in return.
When should you do a design sprint?
When you have a big problem, a tight deadline or are stuck and the solution is not clear. More on that here. You can use design sprints for any type of product be it physical or digital, industrial or consumer See case studies here. You should make sure that the team has no other obligations during that time as no devices should be used in the sprint room.
The schedule is from 10am to 5pm Monday to Thursday, and 9am to 5pm on Friday, usually in 90min intervals with a one hour light lunch at 1pm.
Where should you do a design sprint?
In a large meeting room with large whiteboards. You can also perform remote design sprints.
Monday — Map 🗺
Monday is about understanding exactly what issues need to be addressed to achieve our goals. Also know as understand phase, on Monday you will create a path for the sprint week. You will agree to a long term goal, make a map of the challenge, ask the experts and pick a target. Click here for more details, also here and here (Note: the google docs design sprint methodology has six steps- two for Monday called understand and define).
Other exercises:
User Journey mapping:
User Journey Mapping is a common Design Sprint method that maps out a user’s experience step by step as they encounter your problem or interact with your product. This method enables the team to get into the mindset of the user and illuminates pain points, identifying opportunities to create new or improved user experiences.
- Start with the user’s first step or entry point into your product experience
- Add each step in the journey until the user’s goal has been reached
- Include descriptions for each step and highlight pain points along the journey
This is a good tool for user journey mapping.
Experience mapping 30–50mins:
Experience Mapping is a common UX method where as a team you map out step by step the experience a specific user has within a problem space or context. This is slightly different than a Customer Journey Map. It is a helpful exercise to get the entire team to build empathy with the user’s motivations, needs and pain points.
An Experience Map is helpful if you are developing a new product, or if you have an existing product that you want to look for opportunities to improve. The important thing is that you stepping above your product flow and looking at the larger context a user is operating in.
- Start with the first moment the user has a need for example “I’d like to get in shape” or “I think I might want to make a job change”
- Then list out each step that they go through to try and fill their need currently
- Include descriptions for each step and highlight pain points
- You can also add in layers for platforms (Mobile, Desktop) or environmental factors (In the car, at home)
Google Overview link
User Interview
Invite users for the expert talks:
Job Stories
The idea is to find the core reason why people actually use a certain product.
- Get someone on the team to share the customer perspective
- Individually write down job stories in the format “[When______] [I want to_____] [so I can_____]”. Write one job story per sticky note
- Stick them up on the whiteboard
- Categorize job stories into themes, removing duplicates
- Name categories, discuss and rearrange as needed
- Select the job stories that seem most critical
MONDAY TIMELINE
10 a.m.
❏ Write this checklist on a whiteboard 📝
❏ Introductions - Facilitator give a 5 min presentation so everyone is on the same page. Introduce everyone and their roles.
10:15
❏ Set a long-term goal 🎯 Be very optimistic. Ask: Why are we doing this project? Where do we want to be in six months, a year, or even five years from now? Write the long-term goal on a whiteboard. (p. 55 in Sprint.)
Example:
- Long term goal: Become the number one jobs facilitator platform in a given country
- Sprint questions: Can we attract enough and the right talent? What will make use stand out in the eyes of job seekers?
❏ List sprint questions. Get pessimistic. Ask: How could we fail? What questions do we want to answer in this sprint? To meet our long term goal what has to be true? Imagine we travel into the future and our project failed, what might have caused that? Face your fears and get to the root of big questions. Rephrase assumptions and obstacles into questions. List them on a whiteboard (usually 2–12 questions). (p. 57)
Example:
Q: To reach new customers what has to be true?
A: They have to trust our expertise
Q: How can we turn that into a question?
A: will customers trust our expertise?
❏ Make a map 🗺 List customers and key players on the left. Draw the ending, with your completed goal, on the right. Finally, make a flowchart in between showing how customers interact with your product. Keep it simple: 5-15 steps. (p. 65)
The map is a simple diagram showing customers moving through your service or product. You’ll use the map to narrow your broad challenge into a specific target for the sprint. Provide structure for solution sketches and prototype. Helps keep on track how everything fits together.
13:00-Lunch 🌮
Every lunch should be light and healthy and had as a team.
14:00
❏ Ask the Experts (Lightning talks⚡️). 10–30 mins each. Interview experts on your sprint team and guests from the outside. Ask about the vision, customer research, how things work, and previous efforts. Pretend you’re a reporter. Update long-term goal, questions, and map as you go. Take notes. (p. 71)
Expert talks are about bringing distributed knowledge to everyone. It’s a series of one at a time interviews with people from your sprint team. Each member of the team takes notes individually. Don’t just talk to the people in charge!
The interviews should go like this:
- Introduce the sprint
- Review the whiteboards with them (long term goals, questions and map)
- Expert tells everything she knows about challenge at hand
- Ask questions. Can she find anything on map thats wrong? Ask “why?” and “tell me more about that”
- Update the whiteboards
- Sprint team takes HMW notes during and after talks on sticky notes.
- At end of the day, add HMW notes to whiteboard and organise roughly according to labelled categories. Ex.: “How might we use imagery to tell our story?”
Examples of good lighting talk topics and relevant speakers:
Project Vision and Business Goals — CEO
Voice of the User — The person who interacts with customers the most
User Research — Marketing
Existing Product Audit — Administration/product manager, etc.
Design Evolution — Designer
Competitor Audit —Analyst, CEO, etc.
Technology Considerations & Opportunities-IT, engineers, etc.
❏ Explain How Might We notes 🗒. Distribute whiteboard markers and sticky notes. Reframe problems as opportunities. Start with the letters “HMW” on the top left corner. Write one idea per sticky note. (p. 73)
Be succinct. One idea per sticky note. Not too broad, and not too narrow. If you don’t write it down it can’t be voted on.
16:00
❏ Affinity Maping — Organise HMW notes. Stick HMW notes onto a wall and put similar ideas next to one another and give them a label. Keep it simple. Stop after about ten minutes. (p. 79)
❏ Vote 🗳
Vote on How Might We notes. Each person has two votes (dot stickers), they can vote on the same note twice. Vote in silence and then move winners onto the map. (p. 80)
16:30
❏ Pick a target 🎯 Circle your most important customer and one target moment on the map. The team can weigh in, but the Decider makes the call. (p. 87)
Ask who is the most important customer and what’s the critical moment of that customer experience? Discussion and final decision by decider. Take a straw poll if decider needs help. Match your target with the relevant sprint question.
Then circle the key question you will answer in this design sprint
Tuesday — Sketch ✏️
On Tuesday you come up with solutions and sketch them out. More details here and here.
10:00
❏ Lightning Demos ⚡️
Start by reviewing the map, questions and long term goals from yesterday. Then each person starts searching for great solutions inside and outside the industry. The team then takes turns giving mini-tours of their favourite solutions from other products and domains. You make a list, each person chooses two and presents whats so cool about the solution. Take notes on the whiteboard. Answer “whats the big idea that might be useful?” You’ll end up with a whiteboard full of ideas 10–20. (p.96)
12:30
❏ Divide or swarm . Decide who will sketch which part of the map. If you’re targeting a big chunk of the map in your sprint, divide it up and assign someone to each section. (p. 102)
13:00-Lunch 🍜
14:00
❏ The Four-Step Sketch. Briefly explain the four steps. Everyone sketches. When you’re done, place the sketches in a pile and save them for tomorrow. (p. 109)
- Notes 🗒 Take 20mins to take notes on the goals, opportunities and inspiration collected (you can use devices to look up specific details again about best practice demos). (p. 110)
- Ideas 💡Doodle for another 20mins. Privately jot down some rough ideas. Circle the most promising ones. (p. 111)
- Crazy 8s 🤪 Create eight sketches in eight minutes. Fold a sheet of paper to create eight frames. Sketch a variation of one of your best ideas in each frame. (p. 111)
- Solution sketch ✍️ Thirty to ninety minutes. Create a three-panel storyboard by sketching in three sticky notes on a sheet of paper. Make it self-explanatory. Keep it anonymous. Ugly is okay. Words matter. Give it a catchy title. (p. 114)
Recruit Customers for Friday’s Test 🧪
❏ Put someone in charge of recruiting. It will take an extra one or two hours of work each day during the sprint. (p. 119)
❏ Recruit on Craigslist. Post a generic ad that will appeal to a wide audience. Offer compensation (we use a $100 gift card). Link to the screener survey. (p. 119)
If you have easy to find customers, use craigslist, if you have hard to find customers, use your network. To recruit people who exactly match the target customer, post a generic ad that will attract a broad audience. link to a screener survey to narrow down target customers. Don’t reveal what you’re testing in the ad or who you are seeking in the ad. Offer a $100 amazon coupon or similar and post in “et cetera jobs”.
Ex. “I’m scheduling 60 min research interviews in Chicago on Thursday August 2. Selected participants who complete the interviews will receive $100 amazon gift card”. Please complete this short questionnaire.
❏ Write a screener survey. Ask questions that will help you identify your target customers, but don’t reveal who you’re looking for. (p. 120)
You need to ask the right questions to find the right participants. Start by writing down characteristics of customers you want to test with. Translate those characteristics into something you can discover in your survey and do the same for characteristics you want to exclude. Use measurable data, such as: “how often do you order food online per week?”,
It’s important to write questions that don’t reveal the “right” answer. Rather than ask whether they go to restaurants for example, ask “in a typical week, how many times do you go to a restaurant?”
Rather than ask about whether they like coffee, ask to select their favourites drinks out of a multiple choice.
Use Google Forms or Typeform for your survey. Once the ad is live and the survey ready, the responses will go straight to your google spreadsheet, look through survey results and pick customers who match. Get in touch with them and schedule for the Friday testing session.
❏ Recruit customers through your network. If you need experts or existing customers, use your network to find customers. (p. 122)
For harder to find customers, you can easily use Linkedin or your network. If you need to get in touch with restaurant owners for ex. talk to the local restaurant association.
❏ Follow up with email and phone calls. Throughout the week, make contact with each customer to make sure he or she shows up on Friday.
Wednesday — Decide👩⚖️
Decide on the final sketch to use and take the winning scenes from your sketches and weave them into a storyboard. More details here and here.
Keep things structured by presenting all solutions, critiquing them and then deciding. Avoid going back and forth.
10:00
❏ Sticky decision. Choose the strongest solutions:
- Art museum. Tape the solution sketches to the wall in a row. (p. 132)
2. Heat map. Have each person review the sketches silently and put one to three small dot stickers beside every part they like. (p. 132)
3. Speed critique. Three minutes per sketch. As a group, discuss the highlights of each solution. (p. 135)
4. Straw poll. Each person silently chooses a favorite idea with a large dot sticker. (p. 138)
5. Supervote. The decide uses three large dot stickers with their initials solutions to prototype. (p. 140)
11:20— Break ⏸
11:30
❏ Divide winners from “maybe-laters.” Move the sketches with supervotes together. (p. 141)
❏ Rumble or all-in-one. Decide if the winners can fit into one prototype, or if conflicting ideas require two or three competing prototypes in a Rumble. (p. 145)
❏ Fake brand names. If you’re doing a Rumble, use a Note-and-Vote to choose fake brand names. (p. 145)
❏ Note-and-Vote. Use this technique whenever you need to quickly gather ideas from the group and narrow down to a decision. Ask people to write ideas individually, then list them on a whiteboard, vote, and let the Decider pick the winner. (p. 146)
13:00 — Lunch 🍱
14:00
❏ Make a storyboard. Use a storyboard to plan your prototype. (p. 149)
- Draw a grid on a whiteboard. (p. 152)
- Choose an opening scene. Think of how customers normally encounter your product or service. Keep your opening scene simple: web search, magazine article, store shelf, etc. (p. 153)
- Fill out the storyboard. Move existing sketches to the storyboard when you can. Draw when you can’t, but don’t write together. Include just enough detail to help the team prototype on Thursday. When in doubt, take risks. The finished story should be five to fifteen steps. (p. 154)
Facilitator Tip
Don’t drain the battery. Each decision takes energy. When tough decisions appear, defer to the Decider. For small decisions, defer until tomorrow. Don’t let new abstract ideas sneak in. Work with what you have. (p. 159)
Thursday — Prototype 🤖
On Thursday, you’ll also make sure everything is ready for Friday’s test by confirming the schedule, reviewing the prototype, and writing an interview script. More details for Thursday here and here.
10:00
❏ Pick the right tools 🪛 . Don’t use your everyday tools. They’re optimised for quality. Instead, use tools that are rough, fast, and flexible. (Read more on page 186 in Sprint.)
- Screen (website, app, software, etc.) — use Keynote, PowerPoint, or a website-building tool like Squarespace.
- Paper (report, brochure, flyer, etc.) — use Keynote, PowerPoint, or word
- Service (customer support, client service, medical care, etc.) — write a script and use your sprint team as actors.
- Physical space (store, office lobby, etc.) — modify an existing space.
- Object (physical product, machinery, etc.) — modify an existing object, 3D print a prototype, or prototype the marketing using Keynote or PowerPoint and photos or renderings of the object.
❏ Divide and conquer 🏆 Assign roles: Maker, Stitcher, Writer, Asset Collector, and Interviewer. You can also break the storyboard into smaller scenes and assign each to different team members. (p. 187)
Makers (2 or more) 👷♀️- create the individual components (screens, pages, pieces, and so on) of your prototype. you should also divide up the storyboard. Let’s say your storyboard calls for a customer to see an ad, visit your website, and download your app. You can assign one Maker to create the ad, one to mock up the fake website, and a third to handle the app download screens. Don’t forget the opening scene — the realistic moment that happens before the central experience begins. Be sure to assign a Maker and a Writer to your opening scene, just as with every other part of the prototype. For Blue Bottle Coffee, the opening scene was an article in the New York Times, and we needed someone to write a plausible article.
Stitcher (1) 🪡 - responsible for collecting components from the Makers and combining them in a seamless fashion. ex. Stitcher. To ensure consistency, he pasted everyone’s Keynote slides into the same file, and then tweaked the fonts and colors so that the slides appeared to be one seamless app. To turn up the realism, he added detail to the sign-up screen, adding a slide with a screenshot of the iPad’s on-screen keyboard, to make it look as though the user was really typing. Your Stitcher will make sure dates, times, names, and other fake content are consistent throughout the prototype. Don’t mention Jane Smith in one place and Jane Smoot in the other. Look for typos and fix any obvious errors.
Writer (1) ✍️ -creates the realistic text for the prototype
Asset Collector (1 or more)-Your Asset Collectors will scour the web, image libraries, your own products, and any other conceivable place to find these elements.
Interviewer (1) 🎙 -should write an interview script. this person shouldn’t work on the prototype to avoid them being emotionally involved.
13:00 Lunch 🍕
14:00
❏ Prototype!
❏ Stitch it together. With the work split into parts, it’s easy to lose track of the whole. The Stitcher checks for quality and ensures all the pieces make sense together. (p. 189)
15:00
❏ Do a trial run. Run through your prototype. Look for mistakes. Make sure the Interviewer and the Decider see it. (p. 189)
Ask the Stitcher to walk through the entire prototype, narrating as he goes. As you go, you should double-check against the storyboard to make sure everything made it into the prototype. The trial run is also a great time to revisit your sprint questions. It’s one last check to make sure your prototype will help you get answers. The primary audience for the trial run is the Interviewer, who will be talking with customers on Friday. The Interviewer needs to be familiar with the prototype and the sprint questions so he can get the most out of the interviews.
❏ Finish up the prototype.
Throughout the Day
❏ Write interview script. The Interviewer prepares for Friday’s test by writing a script. (p. 188)
❏ Remind customers to show up for Friday’s test. Email is good, phone call is better.
❏ Buy gift cards for customers. We usually use $100 gift cards.
Key Ideas
- Prototype mindset. You can prototype anything. Prototypes are disposable. Build just enough to learn, but not more. The prototype must appear real. (p. 168)
- Goldilocks quality. Create a prototype with just enough quality to evoke honest reactions from customers. (p. 170)
Friday — Test 👩🔬
On Friday you test your prototype with 5 real users whom you’ve recruited on the days prior. One person from your team acts as Interviewer. He’ll interview five of your target customers, one at a time. He’ll let each of them try to complete a task with the prototype and ask a few questions to understand what they’re thinking as they interact with it. Meanwhile, in another room, the rest of the team will watch a video stream of the interview and make note of the customers’ reactions. More details for Friday here and here.
Schedule:
Research Lab
❏ Two rooms. In the sprint room, the sprint team will watch a video feed of the interviews. You’ll need a second, smaller room for the actual interviews. Make sure the interview room is clean and comfortable for your guests. (Read more on page 202 in Sprint.)
❏ Set up hardware. Position a webcam so you can see customers’ reactions.
❏ Set up video stream. Use google meet or similar to stream video to the sprint room. Test audio and video and mute the testing room.
❏ Screen record. For digital products use zoom to live stream the screen recording of the prototype test to the other room, turn on the webcam to also record the entire interview. For physical products just setup a phone on a tripod and use zoom.
Key Ideas
- Five is the magic number. After five customer interviews, big patterns will emerge. Do all five interviews in one day. (p. 197)
- Watch together, learn together. Watch as a team to draw better conclusions. (p. 218)
- A winner every time. Your prototype might be an efficient failure or a flawed success. In every case, you’ll learn what you need for the next step. (p. 223)
Five-Act Interview
- Friendly welcome. Welcome the customer and put him or her at ease. Explain that you’re looking for candid feedback. (p. 204)
Once the customer is comfortably seated in the interview room, the Interviewer should say something like: “Thanks for coming in today! We’re always trying to improve our product, and getting your honest feedback is a really important part of that. “This interview will be pretty informal. I’ll ask a lot of questions, but I’m not testing you — I’m actually testing this product. If you get stuck or confused, it’s not your fault. In fact, it helps us find problems we need to fix. “I’ll start by asking some background questions, then I’ll show you some things we’re working on. Do you have any questions before we begin?” The Interviewer should also ask the customer if it’s okay to record and watch the video of the interview, and he or she should make sure the customer signs any legal paperwork insisted on by your lawyers. (We use a simple one-page form for nondisclosure, permission to record, and invention assignment. These forms can also be signed electronically before the interview.)
- Context questions. Start with easy small talk, then transition to questions about the topic you’re trying to learn about. (p. 205)
Context questions After the introduction, you’ll be eager to bring out the prototype. Not so fast. Instead, start slow by asking some questions about the customer’s life, interests, and activities. These questions help build rapport, but they also give you context for understanding and interpreting your customer’s reactions and responses.
A great series of context questions starts with small talk and transitions into personal questions relevant to the sprint. If you do it right, customers won’t realize the interview has started. It will feel just like natural conversation. In our sprint with FitStar, we knew it would be helpful to understand more about each customer’s approach to exercise. Michael’s context questions went something like this: “What kind of work do you do?” “For how long have you been doing that?” “What do you do when you’re not working?” “What do you do to take care of yourself? To stay in shape? To stay active?” “Have you used any apps or websites or other things to help with fitness? Which ones?” “What did you want them to do for you? What do you like or dislike about them? Did you pay for them? Why? Why not?” As you can see, Michael started with generic small talk (“What kind of work do you do?”) then steered the topic to fitness (“What do you do to take care of yourself?”). As he asked each open-ended question, he encouraged answers with smiles, nods, and eye contact. At minimum, these context questions make the customer more comfortable and forthcoming. But quite often, the answers help you understand how your product or service fits into the customer’s life — and perhaps, what people think about your competition. In the FitStar interviews, we learned about customers’ experience with workout videos and personal trainers, and how they exercised when they traveled — all useful information.
- Introduce the prototype. Remind the customer that some things might not work, and that you’re not testing him or her. Ask the customer to think aloud. (p. 206)
Introduce the prototype(s) Now you’re ready to get the customer started on the prototype. Michael begins by saying: “Would you be willing to look at some prototypes?” By asking for permission, he reinforces the status relationship: The customer is doing him a favor, not the other way around, and it is the prototype that will be tested, not the customer. It’s also important to say:
even if he actually did. Don’t worry, we won’t tell on you. The Interviewer should also remind the customer to think aloud: “As we go, please think aloud. Tell me what you’re trying to do and how you think you can do it. If you get confused or don’t understand something, please tell me. If you see things you like, tell me that, too.” Thinking aloud makes the interview format especially powerful. Seeing where customers struggle and where they succeed with your prototype is useful — but hearing their thoughts as they go is invaluable.
- Tasks and nudges. Watch the customer figure out the prototype on his or her own. Start with a simple nudge. Ask follow-up questions to help the customer think aloud. (p. 208)
Act 4: Tasks and nudges In the real world, your product will stand alone — people will find it, evaluate it, and use it without you there to guide them. Asking target customers to do realistic tasks during an interview is the best way to simulate that real-world experience. Good task instructions are like clues for a treasure hunt — it’s no fun (and not useful) if you’re told where to go and what to do. You want to watch customers figure out the prototype on their own. As an example, here’s the task from the FitStar test: “Let’s say you came across FitStar in the App Store. How would you decide if you wanted to try it?” Starting from this simple nudge, the customer reads and evaluates the app description, installs the app, and tries it out. The “how would you decide?” phrasing encourages her to act naturally along the way. We learned much more from this simple task than we would have if Michael had micromanaged her at every step. (“Install the app. Now sign up. Now fill in your name.”) Open-ended tasks lead to interesting interviews. Overly specific tasks are boring for both the customer and the sprint team. As the customer goes through the task, the Interviewer should ask questions to help her think aloud: “What is this? What is it for?” “What do you think of that?”
“What do you expect that will do?” “So, what goes through your mind as you look at this?” “What are you looking for?” “What would you do next? Why?” These questions should be easy to answer and not intimidating. The Interviewer tries to keep the customer moving and thinking aloud, not anxious to find the right answer.
- Debrief. Ask questions that prompt the customer to summarise. Thank the customer and give him them a gift card. (p. 209)
Quick debrief To wrap up the interview, ask a few debrief questions. You’ll see and hear a lot during each interview, and it can be tough to pick out the most important reactions, successes, and failures. When you ask debrief questions, your customers can help you sift through everything you heard. Here are some of Michael’s debrief questions: “How does this product compare to what you do now?” “What did you like about this product? What did you dislike?”
“How would you describe this product to a friend?” “If you had three magic wishes to improve this product, what would they be?” Don’t worry — asking the “magic wishes” question doesn’t mean you’re turning your product planning over to your customers. Instead, it helps customers articulate their reactions. It will still be up to you to decide how to interpret and apply what you learn. If you’re testing two or more prototypes in your interviews, review each one (to refresh the customer’s memory) and ask these questions: “How would you compare those different products? What are the pros and cons?” “Which parts of each would you combine to create a new, better version?” “Which one worked better for you? Why?” And that’s it. When the interview is over, the Interviewer thanks the customer, gives her a gift card, and shows her out. Throughout the session, the Interviewer should remain engaged in the conversation. He should
Encourage the customer to talk while remaining neutral (say things like “uh-huh” and “mmm hmm,” not “great!” and “good job!”) There’s no need to take notes. The rest of the team in the sprint room will take care of that for you.
Interviewer Tips
- Be a good host. Create comfortable atmosphere and smile (p. 212)
For just a moment, imagine you are the target customer who comes in for an interview. You’ve shown up to try some new product (you’re not quite sure what) in a building you’ve never been to before, and you’ll be watched by some person you just met. This encounter might have seemed like a good idea a couple of hours ago, but now you’re not so sure. The Interviewer is the host, and the customer is the guest. Michael makes sure the customer is comfortable before the interview begins. He smiles a lot. He’s mindful of his body language. He munches on mints so his breath will be fresh. And he always starts with questions designed to put the customer at ease.
- Ask open-ended questions. Ask “Who/What/Where/When/Why/How?” questions. Don’t ask leading “yes/no” or multiple-choice questions. (p. 212)
- Ask broken questions. Let your speech trail off before you finish a question. Silence encourages the customer to talk without creating bias. (p. 214)
Ask open-ended questions To understand what the customer thinks, you have to be careful not to ask leading questions. Some leading questions are obvious and easy to avoid (we’re sure you won’t say “You like this, right?”). But sometimes, you’ll ask a leading question without meaning to do so. Let’s say you’re interviewing a customer who’s looking at your website — you want to know what the customer thinks, and whether she would be likely to sign up for a demo of your product. Interviewer: “Now that you’ve seen the site, would you be ready to sign up now, or do you need more information?” Customer: “Um, I guess I’d need more info . . . Oh, here’s the FAQ. I’ll check it out.” This exchange looks okay at a glance, but the multiple-choice question (“ready to sign up” versus “need more information”) has influenced the customer’s response. You’re assuming that the customer wants to do one of those two options. It’s tough to do, but you
should avoid asking multiple-choice questions. They’re almost always leading questions in disguise. Now, consider what would happen if you ask an open-ended question instead. Interviewer: “Now that you’ve seen the site, what are you thinking?” Customer: “I dunno, I mean . . . I don’t think it’s right for my company.” Interviewer: “Why is that?” Customer: (Insert fascinating reason here.) We just made this scenario up, but it’s something we’ve seen play out dozens of times. When you ask an open-ended question, you’re more likely to get an honest reaction and an explanation of why. All of this may sound a little complicated, but Michael’s advice to avoid leading questions comes down to just two rules: DON’T ask multiple choice or “yes/no” questions.
(“Would you . . .?” “Do you . . .?” “Is it . . .?”)
DO ask “Five Ws and One H” questions.
(“Who . . .?” “What . . .?” “Where . . .?” “When . . .?” “Why . . .?” “How . . .?”) As with everything, asking questions like these gets easier with practice. One simple trick for the Interviewer: Write some sample “Five Ws” questions right into the script. 3. Ask broken questions Michael Margolis is the master of broken questions. The idea behind a broken question is to start asking a question — but let your speech trail off before you say anything that could bias or influence the answer. Customer: “Hmm!” Michael: “So, what . . . is . . .” (Trails off into silence.) Customer: “Well, I was just surprised to see that the prices were so high.” Michael got an honest, useful response out of the customer without even asking a real question. And because the question was so vague,
she didn’t feel pressure to tell Michael what she thought he wanted to hear. In a situation like the example above, where the customer is reacting to something but not saying what, it’s tempting to ask a leading question like “Were you looking at the pricing there?” With a broken question, you can encourage people to think aloud, without leading them in any direction. You can also learn a lot by just remaining quiet. Don’t always feel compelled to fill the silence with conversation. Stop and watch and wait and listen.
- Curiosity mindset. Be authentically fascinated by your customer’s reactions and thoughts. (p. 215)
Curiosity mindset Our final bit of advice on how to be a great Interviewer is not a technique, but a state of mind. On Thursday, the team has to be in a prototype mindset. On Friday, the team, and especially the Interviewer, should work hard at adopting a curiosity mindset. Being in a curiosity mindset means being fascinated by your customers and their reactions. You can develop this mindset by focusing on the surprising details of what your customers say and do. Always ask “why?”
Never assume or jump to conclusions. Before each interview, anticipate how interesting the information will be that you’ll learn from the customer. Use your own body language to make yourself friendlier and more receptive: smile, lean in, and don’t cross your arms. Curiosity is an outlook that can be embodied, and even learned.
Meanwhile, in the sprint room, the team watches the interviews over a live video feed and takes notes.
Before the First Interview
❏ Draw a grid on a whiteboard. Create a column for each customer and a row for each prototype or section of prototype. (p. 219)
During Each Interview
❏ Take notes. Write down direct quotes, observations, and interpretations on sticky notes. Indicate positive or negative and use different color pens. (p. 219)
After Each Interview
❏ Save the live stream & screen recording videos! Ideally, have one person overlay the user live stream onto the screen recording for review.
❏ Stick up notes. Stick your interview notes in the correct row and column on the whiteboard grid. Briefly discuss the interview, don’t draw conclusions. (p. 220)
At the end of each interview, collect the notes and stick them to the whiteboard. Put them into the correct row and column,
❏ Take a quick break & repeat
At the End of the Day
❏ Look for patterns. Read the board in silence and write down patterns and label as positive, negative, or neutral. If needed, review the videos. (p. 222)
Look for patterns Ask the entire team to gather near the whiteboard. Everyone should stand close enough to read the sticky notes. Take about five minutes to silently review the notes; give each person a notepad and pen to write down patterns he or she sees. Look for patterns that show up with three or more customers. If only two customers reacted in the same way but it was an especially strong reaction, make note of that, too.
❏ Wrap up. Review your long-term goal and sprint questions. Compare with the patterns you saw in the interviews. Decide how to follow-up after the sprint. (p. 222)
The week after 🗓
Ok so you’ve finished the design sprint, but what now?
Review — if you ever plan on having another design sprint, review the process
- What went well?
- Which tools saved you the most time and effort?
- When did you feel the most satisfaction?
- What helped you make your best contribution to the team during this sprint?
2. What can be improved?
- Questions you might ask during this part of the retrospective include:
- What went wrong that caught you off guard?
- Which problems came up the most often?
- When do you think we experienced the biggest challenge as a team?
3. How was the Outcome?
- Did the team overestimate or underestimate the work required to complete the design?
- Did an external factor derail your productivity?
- Does the final design actually solve the user problem?
A Design Sprint is the beginning of generating new ideas and developing solutions for a challenge, not a single moment or the end of the process. Planning for what happens after your Design Sprint should happen before the Sprint even begins.
For example, with new product development, a product manager might develop the business case to invest further company resources, or the development team may iterate upon, develop, and test a high-fidelity prototype.
Ensure there is someone who owns the results of the Design Sprint and give them a clear path toward launch or next steps.
Also, be sure to take a creative break immediately after the Sprint. Sprints are intense, and the team will need to rest and get distance to bring fresh eyes into the next steps.
Facilitator Tips
- Ask for permission. Ask the group for permission to facilitate and explain that you’re there to keep things moving for efficiency. (p. 89)
- ABC: Always be capturing. Synthesize the team’s discussion into notes on the whiteboard. (p. 89)
- Ask obvious questions. Ask “Why?” a lot. (p. 90)
- Take care of the humans. Keep your team energized and take breaks every sixty to ninety minutes. No heavy lunches. (p. 90)
- Decide and move on. If the group sinks into a long debate, ask the Decider to make a call. (p. 91)
