Spotify: What We Learned About Sprints

What’s a Sprint? It’s a user-centered design methodology for teams to brainstorm and test solutions before spending a lot of engineering hours on actually building an idea. It’s a smart way to make decisions specially when you feel stuck on what to work on next.

I recently read Jake Knapp’s latest book, Sprint. I thought I would share some lessons I learned when I ran similar group workshops back when I was a designer at Spotify.

— If you’re leading the sprint, follow your timeline and know what you’re going to say before hand. Don’t wing it!

— Make sure the decision maker believes in the purpose of the sprint.
It’s very frustrating to come up with a great solution and have it shut down.
This tends to happen in bigger companies.

— Let everyone know (involved in the sprint) that any form of sketching is ok. It’s not a design contest. Engineers are usually uncomfortable with drawing, your job is to put them at ease.

— If someone in the group is distracting your timeline don’t point them out specifically, just remind the group as whole to keep going. Group dynamic can be tricky, your job is to keep the group spirit up.

— When it‘s time to do user testing interviews with your prototype, I suggest you find a savvy friend that can help you run them — even more so if you designed or coded the prototype. It’s easy to become attached to your solution and steer the interviewee in your direction.

— Make sure your record the interviews and share them with the rest your team, especially with the people that couldn’t be part of the sprint. The process is also partially about having everyone buy in and sign off on the solution.

You won’t get it right on the first try, but keep at it. Eventually, you’ll have a Sprint process adapted to your team’s needs. Get it right and you’ll find yourself tackling hard problems with ease.

I would love to hear more feedback from designers who’ve run these in small startup teams (less than 15 people). Say hi!

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Cheers,
Miles