How 3 Design Sprints Transformed a Company and Sparked a Creative Revolution
Time and speed to market are crucial. Innovating at a growth level company can be daunting without the right method. Here's how we innovated at scale and helped a company double its growth year over year for over 3 years.
The problem
How do you Transform a Feature-Driven Company into a Growth-Oriented Powerhouse: A Design Thinking Challenge
Despite having valuable JBTD (Jobs to Be Done) research, the company struggled to translate these insights into tangible product improvements. Main problems were:
Feature-driven development instead of user-centered design
Difficulty in prioritizing user needs over feature requests
Lack of a systematic approach to innovation
Risk of losing market share to more user-focused competitors
To address these challenges, the company needed a method to rapidly innovate, validate ideas, and implement user-centered solutions that would drive double-digit growth and improve overall customer satisfaction.
category
UI/UX
Finding the right solution
With the JBTD research concluded, key areas of pain are highlighted to the team based on customer effort scores.
With Product's help, they identified and grouped JTBD steps into three key projects to focus on, aiming to improve the current experience.
This is where I stepped up and used my experience as a consultant. I suggested we run three ambitious sprints to get market more quickly. I knew that if we ran 3 sprints we could quickly unite the team, have an MVP to show and validate an idea which we could guide us to a better tool to get the job done. As one of the few team members who had facilitated a design sprint, I partnered up with a product manager who had also had experience running these. She use to work for IBM as a consultant so she was very use to the process and could help me run these more effectively.
Using tools I developed as a consultant, I quickly helped the team plan a virtual sprint.
As Covid-19 was ongoing, I had initially designed this methodology for in-person sessions. However, I quickly pivoted to effectively plan it remotely without overwhelming participants with Zoom meetings.
This resulted in a Trello board where we could prioritize activities, deciding which ones to focus on more and which ones participants could complete before, during, and after the sprint.
Resulting in 75% faster execution of design sprint planning.
What used to take me a full day (8 hours of work) to plan a sprint, we were able to accomplish in 2 hours by keeping the format flexible to achieve better results.
Now that we had the right project and plan, it was time to find our participants.
As with most startups, time was always against us. With busy schedules and ongoing projects, we were given a 3-week timeline to complete all the sprints.
Using the trello board and Miro we quickly invited a team that would help us get to an initial solution. At the time we decided that one product person would be the decider on what the outcome of the sprint would be.
Every sprint began with a 20-minute "Ask The Experts" or "Expert + How Might We (HMW)" session. I would interview an expert, and everyone would write HMW statements during the interview.
Below is a concise summary of each sprint and its outcomes:
Client
My Role
Design sprint faciliator and execution of strategy after design sprints. My goal was to fuel innovation and shape the product's direction with the user at the center of the outcome.
time frame
November 2022
tools
Miro, Figma, Maze
Week 1 Sprint - Project Pulse
Challenge:
Access insights to gain a holistic picture of the success of customers, identify friction points and better align training programs to their needs.
Problems to solve:
Help customers improve the education by providing valuable insights
The issue we have today we need to Identify the signals we can use in and our of our platform to provide insight
With so many data points that we already have lets identify a MVP
Time Frame:
Sprint Outcome:
30 minute interview with 1 experts that resulted in
94 HWM ( How might we statements )
4 Key Themes with a group vote on 2 key themes to work on.
1 short and 1 long term goal
15 Relevant examples of Competitors/non competitors solving this relevant problem (AKA lightning Demos)
1 Map representing a user’s flow through the product/service.
Placing the 94 HMW on the map to see where to focus.
5 different wireframes/ Ideas by sprint participants.
Dot Voting on the best ideas on the wireframes
Overall vote on the best Solution Idea.
Another Sprint was necessary to find an expert on reporting for the education. We had to pivot on initial idea for guidance on solving the right problem.
Sprint Artifacts
Desired Design Sprint outcome:
Why are we doing that?
A future state of what project pulse could look like
Organize source or ingest of Pulses.
Have a working prototype that helps the customer improve the education
With that prototype we ideate - prototype and test. And... Repeat, and... Repeat until we have something that works for our users.
Final Sprint Prototype to test with:
Week 2 Sprint - Project Merlin
Challenge:
Create customer training in the optimal format easily and instantly through templates and guided flows.
Problems to solve:
Help customers identify the optimal format to deliver the learning experience
Offer guidance and best practices in the authoring flow
Enable users to build content more easily and quickly in our platform
Time Frame:
Sprint Outcomes:
40 minute interview with 2 experts that resulted in
118 HWM ( How might we statements )
6 Key Themes with a group vote on 2 key themes to work on.
1 long term goal
33 Relevant examples of Competitors/non competitors solving this relevant problem (AKA lightning Demos)
1 Map representing a user’s flow through the product/service.
Placing the 118 HMW on the map to see where to focus.
8 different wireframes/ Ideas by sprint participants. 1 from the CEO.
Dot Voting on the best ideas on the wireframes
Overall vote on the best Solution Idea.
Dig Deeper into Merlin >
Sprint Artifacts
Desired Design Sprint outcome:
Why are we doing that?
A future state of what project merlin looks like
Identified highest priority needs our solution should meet
Have a working prototype that helps the customer identify the optimal format for learning
With that prototype we ideate - prototype and test. And... Repeat, and... Repeat until we have something that works for our users.
Final Sprint Prototype to test with:
Week 3 Sprint - Project Atlas
Challenge:
Deliver customer training where it matters most and defeat the consumption gap.
Problems to solve:
Allow customers to be able to distribute their content in a more flexible manner
The challenges offering contextual learning and delivery poses
Enable our users to offer contextualized learning that makes sense for each individual learner in both the right time and place
Time Frame:
Sprint Outcomes:
A larger group with 14 participants:
1 Developer
1 Marketer
2 Success Engineers
1 Customer Success Manager (outliers)
4 Product Manager
3 C-Suit participants
30 minute interview with 1 experts that resulted in
152 HWM ( How might we statements )
6 Key Themes with a group vote on 1 key themes to work on.
1 short and 1 long term goal
25 Relevant examples of Competitors/non competitors solving this relevant problem (AKA lightning Demos)
1 Map representing a user’s flow through the product/service.
Placing the 152 HMW on the map to see where to focus.
5 different wireframes/ Ideas by sprint participants.
Dot Voting on the best ideas on the wireframes
Overall vote on the best Solution Idea.
Sprint Artifacts
Desired Design Sprint outcome:
Why are we doing that?
Future state of Atlas
Identify a way to deliver content as close to the learner action as much as possible
Have a prototype we can iterate and expand upon
Final Sprint Prototype to test with:
Result
Once all sprints were concluded what followed them was an iterative process which resulted in a refinement of ideas. No sprint is perfect but validating with real users and seeing their delight pointed Thought Industries to a new era of innovation.
Why show you the wireframe prototypes and not final prototypes?
The wireframe prototypes represent the raw, unfiltered creativity that emerged from our design sprints. They capture the essence of our innovative ideas before they were refined and polished. By showcasing these early-stage concepts, we demonstrate the evolution of our thinking and the collaborative problem-solving process that led to our groundbreaking solutions.
These wireframes tell the story of how we transformed abstract ideas into tangible product features that would revolutionize the e-learning industry.
Concepts like "Learn Everywhere" emerged from our sprints, and we were so confident in its market potential that we showcased it at our annual event, Cognition. Thought Industries' Cognition is a virtual gathering for customers, partners, and professional training leaders who are driving continuous business growth.
From when I joined the company the company had $8M revenue. Their plan was to grow 2x every year.
What followed these sprints was 3 years of growth where the the company achieved its goal of 2x its revenue year over year.
I am sure these sprints contributed to year of over year growth of Though Industries.
