How fast can you go from an Idea to Reality?
From an idea to the time you validate your solution with real users - not friends and family, how long does it take?
In case you are yet to start, how long should you take?
Lean Startup is a buzz-word these days. And for a good reason too - it works! But, there may be times when you get hung-up trying to validate with methods like landing pages, MVPs, MVFs and Interviews. And before you know it, a month has passed by, trying to generate traffic to your landing pages, making sense of analytics and polishing your MVP.
The Google Ventures' Design Sprint is a framework for solving real-world problems through research, ideation, prototyping and talking to real users, in 5 days or less.
How will Design Sprint help?
- Focus. First off, design sprint will put you on the clock. 3-5 days of complete immersion.
- Build the right thing. Taking a Design Thinking approach inspired by IDEO, will help you look at the problem the way your customer would. Then user your teams creativity to solve it in unique ways.
- See the Truth. When you'll put the prototype to test in the hands of a real user, your team will see first-hand what works and what doesn't. It's the next best thing to reading your customer's minds.
- With a couple of days still left in the week, you relax with a cup of Earl Grey tea and do some more thinking. Probably, get ready for the next sprint.
When we conducted design sprints with our customers, we had some unexpected realizations:
- We saw that the ownership and motivation in the team improved significantly.
They were mindful about "why" they were working on the features they were working on.
- Our customers would say, "This has completely changed the way I think about building products."
Going from a solution driven approach to problem-first approach and keeping the products very lean.