The Design Sprint - Discovery to User Testing in 5 Days

Agenda:
7:00 - 7:15
Gather/Introductions
7:15 - 8:15
Presentation (see description below)
8:15 - 8:30
Question & Answers
8:30 - 9:00
Discussion: Group Challenges to Pursue

Description
Learn whether a Design Sprint is a valuable tool for your next project and get a kick-start on putting one together for your team or your next big challenge.

The Design Sprint, adapted by a team at Google Ventures, is a 5-day series of observation, ideation, prototyping, and testing that takes the best methodologies of user-centered design, Design Thinking, and Service Design, and distills it into a time frame workable with almost any challenge or project.

You start on Monday with a challenge and end on Friday with a workable prototype of your solution, tested with real users.

The Design Sprint can also help eliminate endless deliberation that plagues some projects and initiatives, by forcing decisions under strict deadlines.

It allows designers and stakeholders to get out of their own heads and get something in front of users to test assumptions. The Sprint allows your team to:
• Narrow the scope of your project to a solvable challenge. On day one, ensure the challenge you’re tackling is, in fact, the real problem.
• Get rapid results and presentable feedback. Each exercise produces physical artifacts that can be used to show others how you came to your decisions.
• “Think alone, together.” The exercises during the Sprint allow for the best of both collective brainstorming and individual ideation.
• Gain stakeholder buy-in. By involving your stakeholders at key decision points in the sprint, they become partners in the process and have more skin in the game.
• Test a prototype with real users on day five. Before a single line of code is written, get real users to weigh in on how they would interact with the solution, what resonates, and what falls flat.

We'll walk through the Design Sprint process from its initial proposal, to pre-sprint preparation, to execution. We will:
• Walk through the detailed steps of the Design Sprint, hour-by-hour and day-by-day.
• Understand the planning and logistics needed for a successful Sprint, including locating space and materials, and selecting a team.
• Learn how to get your key people on board with the idea of a Sprint.
• Review some of the unexpected challenges and surprising successes.
• Get real-life lessons learned.

Orases has been kind enough to let us host this meetup at their offices in Frederick.
One of the 2019 winners of Frederick County Best Places to Work, Orases creates custom software solutions that transform your process, empower your people, and help you reach your vision.