A design sprint is a 4-5 day process approach to quickly solve complex challenges, identify innovation opportunities and rapidly test big ideas. It accelerates development, fosters respect for each other, speeds up collaboration and guarantees future insights no matter what.
"If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old"
In today’s rapidly changing world, traditional ways of working often fail to deliver tangible results or meet expectations. For too long, many companies have tried to solve current and future problems with tools and mindsets from the last century. The result? Endless meetings, disorganized silos and poorly aligned teams. With this approach, many problems cannot be tackled at the root, no useful new ideas can be developed and no efficient solutions can be designed.
In larger companies, the launch of new projects and the introduction of new services or products are often lengthy processes with countless planning sessions and meetings.
In just 4 days, every Sprint team will quickly
As soon as a team has mastered the most important sprint tools and ingredients, it can apply all these techniques (such as time-boxing or rapid ideation) in its daily work processes and team structures.
"Efficiency is doing things right, effectiveness is doing the right things"
In an isolated environment, no one has the full picture, which leads to employees feeling defensive, frustrated and demotivated because they feel they are not included. If you can’t understand the reasons behind a particular decision, it’s all too easy to think that another team is to blame, which can lead to finger-pointing and reticence. If there is no communication, there is no respect. Without mutual respect, meaningful collaboration is not possible.
Although bringing together a team from different departments for four full days may not seem very effective on paper, the result always exceeds expectations. And that’s no exaggeration:
"Collaboration is the stuff of growth"
Empathy is perhaps the most overlooked ingredient for innovation. This is problematic because empathy is a key component of any successful innovation. In the ‘information age’, for example, many companies rely too much on evaluating their customers through algorithms, statistics and Excel spreadsheets, rather than simply observing and talking to them.
"People ignore designs that ignore people"
It may sound a little paradoxical, but the willingness to fail is also one of the most important, and yet often least considered, steps in the development of products, services or companies. Many companies are incredibly risk averse because they believe they are unable to cope with or recover from failure of any kind, or that everything they try is at the limit of their capabilities. Without an experimental mindset, these organizations are missing out on valuable learning opportunities and the ability to de-risk projects through iterative learning.
"Failure is simply the opportunity to start again, smarter next time"
It’s worth thinking about the fact that many projects, especially large transformation projects, can take 6-18 months. Imagine starting work on a project and only realizing after 12 months, “Hey team, I’m not sure we’re really working on the right problem here.” I suspect you would be pretty frustrated and demotivated, not to mention feeling that the problem area has once again become nebulous.
"If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together"
Whatever your team, whatever your problem, whatever your doubts. Find out through sprints!
If you would like to find out more about how these tools and tactics can be used in your company, please get in touch with us. We look forward to developing some exciting sprint stories with you.
"I see every day as an experiment and not as an assessment of my character"
Arrange a personal consultation now and let our experts advise you. We will be happy to give you an insight into current projects and talk about your specific ideas and needs.
Our core competency lies in the combination of agile methods and stable solutions for challenging management, organisational and transformation tasks. With this experience-based advantage and our very special cohesion, we achieve effective results and sustainable changes.