Proving the value of design sprints to executives
13 things you can do to get senior leadership to say yes to design sprints…and subsequently make yourself one of the most highly sought after resources in your company.
If I sit still for a second, I can transport myself back to the summer of 1990. Cruising down Esposito Drive on my Craftsman lawn tractor, Toro weed wacker slung over my shoulder, and a box of tissues (for the hayfever) lodged between my feet. I’m headed to the Longo’s to rake in a whopping $25 for my professional landscaping services.
The only other accessory on me is my Sony discman. And the only music getting playtime for me those days were Public Enemy, Ice Cube, Eric B & Rakim, and Tribe.
Little skinny white boy, cutting grass in suburbia USA, listening to the trials and tribulations of being a black man in America.
My friends were, of course, listening to Pearl Jam.
What did they know about music?
They needed to expand their horizons. They needed to trust me that a little hip hop would be good for their soul. I mean, I liked it… what other proof did they need?!
What’s good for me must be good for everyone, right?
If you’re anything like me, whenever I experience value from something, I want everyone to stop what they’re doing and try it. And just as I advocated for rap at 14, I’ve taken the same position with design sprints over the past couple years.
I’ve seen the results they’ve produced in the products we build or repair at New Haircut. So why wouldn’t every product team in every company adopt sprints immediately?
Well, because it’s change and change is hard, of course.
But instead of spending time talking about working around existing design systems, implementing change management, group dynamics, persuasion, or the role of authority across each of these, this post is about the things that product and design leaders can get started on right away, to help their senior leadership teams realize the value of design sprints.
Each of the 13 points below could have an entire article written about them — and may likely in the future. However the purpose of this post is to capture them all in one list, so you have an actionable, start-to-finish agenda.
If you have any questions, want to hear more details about any of them, or have ideas you’d like me to add to the list, get in touch with me and we’ll talk about it.
The list is broken down in 4 simple stages, with related steps to take at each.
Stage 1
- Your DS experience: You read the book or heard about sprints from someone you trust.
- Team’s DS experience: It’s just you, girl.
- Biggest challenge: Nobody else at your company knows what a DS is or cares.
- Biggest goal: Arm yourself.
1. Learn
Remember your place on the adoption curve above. That implies there’s still a lot you and the industry needs to learn, experiment with, and codify. I know you’re anxious and the pressure is mounting to deliver in worsening conditions, but spend the time to get your feet under you. At the end of the article I also share some helpful resources.
2. Show success elsewhere
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that many company leaders have a competitive bone or two in their bodies. Use that to your advantage and share stories of others (hint: competitors) using design thinking or design sprints to win.
3. Ask for training
Not only will you increase your overall knowledge and awareness of available resources, but the company will expect some kind of return on investing in your training. Take lots of pics & vids to share with others in your company.
Bonus: Request 1 other team member join you — not only will you get more out of it (good for the company), but you’ll have an immediate DS ally.
4. Join a weekend design bootcamp
Typically not a hackathon, although you might get lucky that the organizers include and recommend some type of DS activities to get started. Otherwise, look for events including words like human/user-centered, design thinking, design-driven. You’ll develop a feel for the mindset & activities, and also meet others in a similar position as you. Take lots of pics & vids to share with others in your company.
Stage 2
- Your DS experience: All theory, no practice.
- Team’s DS experience: Maybe 1–2 others, but probably still just you.
- Biggest challenge: Not enough support or evidence to support your mission.
- Biggest goal: Build your troops.
5. Recruit “nearby” support
Product, research, design, and engineering are all in the same boat — you’re being asked to build majestic sand castles in a total shit storm. Find and recruit your counterpart on those neighborly teams who also want to see things improve.
6. 360° success metrics
This is definitely a topic I could write an entire post about, but for now…
DS will produce a lot more than just successfully implemented features and products. Because they require cross-functional team, they’re going to break down silos and improve communication — metrics: satisfaction/morale, loyalty. Because they’re design-driven, they’re going to help you retain A-grade designers, PMs, etc — metrics: headcount / attrition, costs to hire, hiring success rate, new hire retention. And don’t forget speed — metrics: quicker to market (+associated metrics) reduction in meetings & emails, productivity.
7. Recruit “perimeter” support
Armed with your wider-reaching success metrics, you can begin to share the resource related opportunities with HR and hiring managers. You’ll also make your CFO warm and fuzzy with the bottom-line speed and cost savings metrics you’ve gathered.
Stage 3
- Your DS experience: You’re excited to join a sprint.
- Team’s DS experience: A few are also game.
- Biggest challenge: (1) Leadership struggling to commission 5-10 people to commit 5 days, (2) Nobody on the team has the chops to facilitate yet.
- Biggest goal: Get approval for your first sprint.
8. Find an important problem
If your company stands to make tens or hundreds of millions from the launch of a new product or improvements to an existing one, senior leadership is not going to squawk about spending 5 days upfront to make sure things goes well. But since this is your first, avoid swinging for the fences. Suggest a DS on that important but thorny project that’s been stuck in the mud for the last year.
More on how to learn how to pick good problems to run design sprints on.
9. Find an expert
This is your first DS. You’ve selected a problem / project with eyeballs on it. The stakes are high. Bringing in a design sprint master to facilitate the process, help you avoid all of the pitfalls, and allow your team to show up and focus on what they’re good at is a super idea.
10. Prepare
Even once you’ve agreed on an important problem, it doesn’t mean that it’s 100% qualified for a DS. The last thing you want is to convince leadership to run a sprint, fly the team in, and discover midway through that you weren’t ready. Rest assured, if that happens, everyone will blame you and the process. Instead, spend a few days with a couple other key members of the team on problem framing, research, mapping, and sprint team recruiting. The outputs here will show you’ve done your homework and mitigated business risk. And a good facilitator will guide you through these critical steps, too.
Bonus: This stuff can be done virtually, so no travel budgets required.
11. Shorter sprints
Even with an important problem selected, what may happen is leadership agrees to a DS that’s less than 5 days. Logistically, 5 days is hard — people need to travel over weekends, be away from family, and then spend the following weekend catching back up. But if you follow #10 above (and manage to get some outside help), you can condense your sprint to 3 or 4 days. After a year+ of doing the same, fewer of our facilitated sprints are 5 full days.
3 points of caution:
- For any problem of significance, spending less than 3 days might be too aggressive; definitely if it’s your first sprint. In the most ambitious timeline, you’ll have 1 day to ideate/create, 1 to prototype, and 1 to test. If you can’t get leadership to agree to at least 3 days, back up and make sure you’re focused on the right size problem.
- And building off the point above, if you have buy-in to do a 1/2-day or 1-day sprint, don’t call it that. Call it a workshop. Call it a design session. But don’t call it a design sprint. Because if it completely flops under the pressure and unrealistic expectations, others will anchor on that and consider sprints to be not all that they’re cracked up to be.
- Avoid condensing the sprint at all costs if you haven’t done the pre-sprint steps ahead.
12. Invite others to peer in
I would recommend inviting 1 person to join your DS as an observer — someone that’s expressed a bit of interest but wouldn’t typically be part of such an exercise. Also someone with a bit of influence. They will become your unlikely advocates, which will carry a lot of sway. Otherwise, reach out to a handful of influencers and invite them to drop in during your breaks. Walk them around the room so they can see what’s being created. Have them talk with the other participants, who will surely be delighted and happy to share. And always take lots of pics & vids to share with others that couldn’t witness things first-hand.
Stage 4
- Your DS experience: It’s official, you’re a sprinter.
- Team’s DS experience: 1 crew down, lots more lined up for the next.
- Biggest challenge: Demonstrating success.
- Biggest goal: Adopting sprints for the long term.
13. Report back
At the conclusion of each sprint my team and I facilitate, we create a Stakeholder Report. It’s a playback of the problem we tackled, insights we learned from one another and outside experts, the solution we prototyped (links to it), a summary of user reactions (+links to recorded interviews), and recommended next steps — including budgets to proceed with product development (when applicable). Give your stakeholders all they need to make a go/no-go decision.
What to expect next
With any degree of success in anything we do, others will eventually get wind of it and want some for themselves.
When we first learned about sprints in 2015 and saw the success other companies were having, we realized the problems they would solve within our product development process.
Our adoption of sprints within New Haircut provided sweeping benefits, both for our team and the product teams we supported. And it’s very reasonable for you to expect the same within your company — all of the people and teams that shrugged you off during Stage 1, will be asking you to spend time with their teams to facilitate their sprints. And so on.
Trust me when I tell you that I understand how difficult it can be to be an innovator or early adopter. But if you follow the tactics I laid out here, the payoff to you, your career, and your company will be substantial.
Ready to kickstart sprints in your organization?
Since 2015, New Haircut has been recognized as a global leader in design sprints. Now, we’re looking to help others achieve the same success with their sprints with our Design Sprint Toolkit.
The toolkit includes all of our digital templates, presentation slides, pro tips, and dozens of sprint upgrades. Included are versions that support remote (virtual) or in-person sprints.
This toolkit is 100% comprehensive and ready-to-use, today.
