You and your team were faced with a difficult business question, so you participated in a Design Sprint to answer it. The Design Sprint gave you clarity, a lot of data to work with, a functioning prototype, and a validated hypothesis. Now what? How do you proceed to a development-ready state?
Lokion recommends a 5-day Action Sprint to answer that question and translate your Design Sprint conclusions into actions.
In an Action Sprint, your team begins to analyze data, conclusions, and prototypes from the Design Sprint and break it all down into meaningful pieces of work. This can be done alongside your ongoing development efforts.
Day 1: Analyze and understand the feedback
Outline what you know and what you still don't know. Did your Design Sprint reach the conclusions you expected? Do you have enough clarity and specificity to start development? Are there parts of your Design Spring prototype that are solid enough to turn into functioning solutions? You should leave day 1 with a clear sense and statement of direction and purpose.
Day 2: Map the user experience
Revisit your direction and conclusions, then begin mapping the experience from your user's perspective. Write down your starting point, then the desired end point, and fill in the steps in between. Don’t worry about formatting -- you can turn these into full-fledged user stories on day 5. Remember: You’re only mapping this particular solution at a very high level, not your entire product or effort! You should leave day 2 with a clear understanding of your product’s user experience and steps.
Day 3: Revisit your prototype
Did yesterday’s mapping exercise change any functionality? If so, consider minimally reworking the prototype. The prototype doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs enough detail to validate any new hypotheses.
Day 4: Re-validate direction
Test with users to get feedback on any changes made to your prototype and/or direction. Refer to your story map and make any changes based on that feedback.
Day 5: Break your experience map into user stories
Take the activities identified in days 2-4 and break it down into workable user stories, then order them based both on importance (priority) and timeliness (rank). Your entire functional team (Product Owner, Scrum Master and Delivery Team) should be part of this exercise. Remember that you only need detail and sizing for the stories your development team will be working on in the near term. This allows for discoveries and change without wasting too much time trying to predict the future.
By the end of this Action Sprint you and your team will have translated your Design Sprint insights into a clear sense of direction, a re-validation of your efforts, and a prioritized backlog that your developers can start working from right away.
