Design Sprint for Efficient Innovation

As part of our Design Sprint Services, Computas delivers within this working method courses, coaching, facilitation and process management. Design sprint is about quickly developing an idea and testing the solution on customers or end users. The Design Sprint process facilitates focused work, with the goal of being able to validate an idea – whether it is a product, a service or a strategy – in just one week.

We have cutting-edge expertise in innovation through design sprints, and can help your company in saving time and resources. Is the idea good? Is the service or product worth developing? Is this worth pursuing and investing time and money in? These are difficult questions to answer before things are fully developed and tested. Design sprint makes it possible to get an answer to this faster than a traditional approach, where we build the product before we get feedback from customers.

What is a design sprint?

Design sprint is a working method for solving complex problems. What characterizes the design sprint as a method is the duration, the participants, the type of collaboration and the kind of problems to be solved.

The structure of the design sprint differs from common working methods in product / service development

• The Sprint has only one working week’s duration
• The team members are selected across disciplines and departments
• The team follows a structured process for idea development and collaboration
• The purpose of the sprint is to solve complex problems for the organization

Design sprint aims to solve a problem in a short time, and only five days per week are set aside for working on the project. In return, the team working on the design sprint that week will focus solely on that project. They can therefore make themselves and their skills fully available during this time.

Design sprint is also used primarily to solve what we call complex problems. By this we mean that the problem does not have one specific answer or only has one given solution. In developing a new service or product, this means that the team has to choose between many different options.

The design sprint participants are selected based on the problem to be solved, and should cover the disciplines needed to come up with good solutions. This results in a professionally strong team that has different perspectives and complements each other’s expertise. The team usually consists of the company’s own employees, who represent the business areas affected. In addition, Computas can contribute further expertise, for example in design, development, cloud technology or AI.

With team members from different parts of the organization, we gather different perspectives to approach the problem from several angles at the same time. This way we come up with solutions faster, and more considerations are taken into account at an earliest possible stage.

The structure of a design sprint

The design sprint is spread over one work week, as a structured work process. With only one work week available as working time, the team will have to prioritize their choices and streamline their work.

Why choose design sprint and Computas?

Design sprint is applicable for most sectors, businesses and disciplines. The method can be adapted to the project and the problem to be solved.

Computas’ facilitation of design sprints includes several services, and ensures efficient implementation. By choosing the project implementation with design sprint from Computas, you can be sure that you and your business have a comprehensive and successful project. We can help you with:

• Initial investigations and analyzes of the problem to be solved
• Assistance in selecting suitable candidates for the team
• Facilitation and management of design sprint
• Further development of successful results and prototypes
• Development of prototype as MVP (Minimum viable product)
• Reporting of results, and suggestions for further processes

What to expect after the completed design sprint?

After only four days of design sprint, we test the prototype on a group of customers, and find out if the solution is effective or not. There are usually three different outcomes after a completed design sprint:

• The sprint is a success, and the prototype gives the results you wanted. In this scenario, Computas can help you onwards in the process, and continue the follow-up to further develop the prototype
• The prototype does not work as intended, and you do not get the desired results. When this happens, we see it as valuable experience. You have gained increased knowledge about the product or service, and have a better starting point for moving forward. Computas helps you with the next step in the process of finding another solution.
• The prototype does not provide clear answers, but there is something there to consider. This scenario means that more work is needed before you know if you should move on with this particular solution. Computas guides you, and can assist in using the information you have gathered to plan the next step in the process.

Regardless of the outcome, we guarantee that you have learned a lot in an extremely short time by using the design sprint methodology, compared to a normal product development process.

Wednesday 13 November 2019 we organized a breakfast seminar with design sprint theme. Two of Norway’s foremost experts on Google Design Sprint, Ram Yoga and José Manuel Redondo Lopera, gave an introduction, FINN.no and NAV shared their experiences.