What is the SPRINT model, and how does it work?

Concept

SPRINT is a lean-start-up model, designed by Jake Knapp in 2016, ex-Google’s staff, that guides a team of up to five staff over five consecutive days to discover innovative solutions for problems and test them.

Background

Jake Knapp designed the SPRINT model in the book ‘SPRINT’ in 2016. SPRINT is a collaborative and experimental approach that teaches teams how to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days.

How does it work?

SPRINT is a step-by-step approach to solving problems. Here is a brief description of the steps to use the SPRINT design (Jake Knapp, 2016)¹:

Set the stage- Challenge, team, time and space

Challenge: Search and identify the most pressing challenges hindering your business from reaching profitability and growth.
Team: Pick up a team of a maximum of seven (7) members, comprising roles: decider, finance expert, marketing expert, customer expert, tech expert and design expert. Running a sprint session requires a facilitator. Experts are also required to give accurate details and advice forward.
Time and space: Five-day workshop with daily time hours of 10:00 – 5:00 pm. Get two (2) whiteboards, note stickers, pens and a wall clock.

Monday- Set long-term goals, draw a challenge map, note challenges and explore ideas for solutions.

Start at the end: Agree on a long-term goal.
Questions: ask questions on the challenges, problems or critical causes and ideas for solutions. List all questions on the whiteboard.
Map challenges: draw a map showing the challenges and how it affects the business. List the map on the whiteboard. It is simple and subject to ask for help to solve the challenge.
Expert: ask experts at your company to share what they know about the challenge and solution ideas. Update your long-term goal, questions (on how to solve challenges and achieve goals), and the map of the challenge.
Notes: ask the team to write notes about questions raised on sticky notes. Edit questions as per notes (problem-solving ideas). Organise the notes on a grouping and voting basis. Then, map challenges according to the outcomes of expert-brainstorming notes.
Target: pick up a target (a customer and a critical factor in the customer’s experience).
Wrap up: define the problem, solution ideas, and the updated map. Spend the rest of the week solving the challenge or problem and achieving the goal.

Tuesday- Develop the solutions

Warm-up: review existing ideas to remix and improve. Each participant makes an inspirational list of existing/successful ideas (product or business) and shows them to the team.
Solutions: Participants will take notes on solving the underlying challenge. Update the whiteboard with the demonstrated ideas and notes.
Sketch: Each participant will sketch his/her solution in four-step processes: notes (gathering key information), ideas (develop rough solutions), Crazy 8s (sketch ideas in 8 crazy sketches), and a solution (sketch one solution).

Wednesday- Choose the solution and write a storyboard

Decide: on the best solution and prototype. Deciding on the solution includes (1) listing solution options on the wall, (2) each member presenting his/her solution, evaluating and commenting on other solutions, and voting on a chosen solution (2 dots), (3) then the decider votes (4 dots for one solution or distributed over sketches).
Rumble: Where a team concluded with over one sketch option. Here, the team may vote on options and choose one or leave it for the testing day for selection.
Storyboard: this is about the experience a customer goes through to search, choose, use, and benefit from the solution. The storyboard is used to build the solution prototype for testing and customer testing. It may comprise steps like an opening scene (e.g., web search), navigating the product with a description of each step, and writing enough details so customers will not need to ask for help. Once it is done, the decider must approve it. Make the storyboard easy to read and understood by customers within a maximum of fifteen (15) minutes is the time limit for each customer testing.

Thursday- Develop a prototype

Why prototype: the advantage of any prototype is to enable testing of a solution using limited resources like time, effort and money. Further, it allows for changing assumptions and rebuilding concepts with limited resources.
Prototype mindset: change philosophy from perfect to just enough to enable quick learning. Believe in the facts: you can prototype anything; the prototype is disposable; build just enough to experiment and learn, and it must appear real.
Goldilocks quality: the prototype should appear real or just right.
Prototype focus: it comprises deciding on the question to be answered by the customers and the format or tool to convey the question.
Pick the right tools: including Keynotes, PowerPoint presentations, or using specialised software for prototype making. It can be a website page, a manufacturing sample, a paper prototype, 3D printing, a brochure, a landing sheet at a website, or a video. Keynote is always the perfect tool to develop a prototype.
Divide the conquer: Make the individual components; stitch them together; insert the right texts; include images, videos, links, icons, or sample content; stitch them all together, make it a fake real and run a trial.

Friday- Testing

How to test: interviewing customers and learning by watching them react to the prototype.
No interviews: tests may be run for five (5) interviews as a minimum. 85% of the results are discovered during the first five (5) interviews.
One-to-one interview: scheduling a one-to-one interview with customers for 30 minutes each.
The interview: it goes through friendly welcoming, open questions about the customers, introduction to the prototype, detailed tasks of the prototype and watching customer reactions and debriefing. The team tapes the interview live for monitoring.
Learn: while interviewing customers, the team watches the video live and writes their comments on stickers. Then grid a table and place the team’s comments under each interviewed customer. The team may also watch the video some other times and take notes.
Next action: evaluate the testing outcomes and decide on the solution prototype, whether to change or accept and move forward.

This post is sourced from my new book- Your Guide To Reach Innovation.
For more information about the book: https://growenterprise.co.uk/your-guide-to-reach-innovation/
To register in our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/ggcC29

Final note: the book- Your Guide To Reach Innovation, is an actionable guide to innovation from beginning to end. Enjoy reading the book, and I look forward to your reviews.

Author: Munther Al Dawood

www.growenterprise.co.uk

maldawood@growenterprise.co.uk

References:

Jake, Knapp, 2016. SPRINT, Bantam Press, UK.