Interview with Jake Knapp, inventor of the DESIGN SPRINT (Lot's of Design Sprint Hacks)

Key Takeaways

Oh God [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Oh fire okay so I'm here at Jake's man we just I'm here with James Knapp the most famous designer in the entire planet according to him Jake is the author of a sprint actually it let's explain what a book is it's a lot of sheets of it you get so many questions or to John Louis I'm Jake I'll uh I'm a designer although the waffles actually they need real designs on products all right guys so here's the deal we kind of messed up the sound on this video yeah sorry about that the content is still great but you're going to hear every so often some sort of you should still watch this video even though it's actually really good sound it's actually perfect the sound is amazing I don't know which I wondered into process how things get done and making good use of kind of became my life or mission and life they can give you some time my own time and other people's time and so I came up with a process called a design sprint built on a lot of ideas that have been out there and I tried to formalize it into a recipe that could be run over and over again sorry doing that at Google giving you that the Google Ventures a five years with bunch of different startups and smell yeah I thought a lot of folks are doing it which is pretty pretty cool kind of by accident I mean that I was always really into design but didn't realize that when I was a kid I was into computers and we had a Apple's computer was like the black string and green text on it and anyway I'd as soon as I got a hold of something I could make a game on the computer I was all into that I used HyperCard he's slow to shop in high school and in college I got an internship at oakley sunglasses company huh and I'm supposed to be writing copy there but they needed somebody make animated gift and I knew how to do that I was like I'll do that and so I ended up working with the web team and then I was like oh this is this is cool this is like all this other stuff that I like and and so I kind of learned on the job well I had been exposed to a workshop that I think you from I do he's brought this process in and and there was a lot of really cool things about it and then I've seen pieces of other things that teams were doing that were really interesting you know hackathons or taking away from teams ran their their stand-ups at Google they're interesting but I hadn't seen something that took all that put together into like the full cycle of what you need to do to make progress on design so at some point kind of frustrated with the pace of my own design work and oftentimes my own procrastination or the sort of random nature of the way a week was spent I have a meeting about this topic and medium of that topic all these context which is bringing people in at the wrong time and things just kind of sometimes slogging along so I thought I wonder if you could apply that bigger timescale and a week seemed reasonable I thought a design sprint but that word would help people at Google is a very engineering driven culture I thought it makes design sound appealing to them because it was that well I think they're the same I mean I think that design of them I think this design thinking and also Michael lean startup are two excellent philosophies but they're not necessarily easy to apply it's not necessarily easy to you know how you put that into practice and the design sprint take I think the essence of those philosophies and says look Spears a recipe for how you do that there's more to it than that there are more things than the Sprint that have to do with include dynamics where you will make decisions even like can be if you're science and stuff but but a lot of it is taking that that idea that awesome is best done by an agency and showing a you know any team like here's a practical way to do it really fast and put it into children to practice so I don't think of them as competing in any way or really even different it's just a that's an application of it I think the reason why does that have work laws because that I was this really unique situation and it's together with my colleagues at Google Ventures we got some work with all these different companies we really just want to introduce them to a process that will help them learn quickly because with investors we wanted them to be successful you know we wanted them to be able to take a bunch of risks without risking too much on those and and be able to find that product market fit [Music] even if you don't really you should buy it makes it why does it make the Grays its buy it it's a lovely and at least then yeah because we want to build a little like a house and I think it'll work all good at you buying it's much better in the process the direct correlation yeah but the big idea in the book is to build and test the prototype in five days and I think and and you know I didn't look is if you have a recipe for doing that you and your team can focus on solving the problem and not have to worry about figuring out how to get there ideally as early on in the process of doing something big and risky as possible but I think anytime where you know you think that you're arguing with each other you're saying like I'm not sure every ocean it this way or that way I'm you know anything I think people will do this I think people will do that you're embarking on something that's going to take you weeks to learn for longer and expensive that's a great time to try doing a sprint because we see a huge advance and the clarity of the ideas and the confidence that you're on the right course [Music] yeah I originally thought it would only work for digital products when they started doing and then googling to try out different kinds of companies because we were invested in different kinds of companies and as far as proof that it works with pretty much anything the key is that every kind of thing that you every kind of problem you might try to solve it has some point where a human touches the things right like if it's a it's a sales process there's a moment when that sales person talks to a client or potential customer if it's a decision-making process inside a company there's a moment when there's a meeting that happens and people follow that process and all those things are prototyping in moments so in this point if you just there's the key opportunity or risk for us and implementing this new thing and instead of deciding what the right way to do it is and then totally committing to it forever we're going to prototype it and test it out then all the spread stuff works the few big most common mistakes are not involving the decision maker at all so not thinking who's going to decide what she ultimately happen and I just going on it and the other really common mistake is cutting it short for stopping before these prototypes or before you've tested usually that's you know people say like oh it's great that you can do it in you know four or five days that would fit into a three and then my experience and friends would often at the end you know doing sketches making the decisions you think I'm there's a great idea and you should still build it and then when we prototype it and put in front of people you recognize all the flaws and usually on your first friend there's a lot of flaws it's great we've learned that early but if you don't learn that early you'll go ahead and read that thing and then maybe really sorry get out and allow the strenght will work even with an inexperienced moderator if somebody follows the steps it's so detail and then look there's like a fifteen page checklist like it really takes you through every part of the process and it's very much a how-to guide and I've heard a lot of stories from folks who ran a sprint for the first time and it worked but when you have an experienced moderator there are all kinds of some things that happen when this goes as it takes of the burden off of the team itself we've got the money you can come in here and manage it you don't have to wonder so much about whether different parts are going to work so there's that confidence level and that's kind of you know level two of things and then level three is being able to help people kind of move through things more quickly being able to help people figure out how to make a map or make the right decisions more quickly things you dig it's like it's a lot in terms of the products when you have a sense of product strategy and business strategy and can out the team see some of the opportunities long that's you know that newsprint becomes super exact number the exact number is twenty four percent okay like that I think a lot of times what happens with the first brand is that you learn how wrong you were about some big assumptions and that sounds like it would be super depressing but it's usually kind of excited maybe things like oh oh okay but but now having seen that having seen our thing might exposed to the real world to the sort of the negative space becomes clear you're like the real opportunity is here if we shift like this it's going to make much more sense to people so it's often in that follow-up a week maybe I'm doing the follow-up sort of partial sprint the student might revise the prototype test it again that's one things often take off 23% by a little low I think a lot of times there's there's definitely components and almost every prototypes that are that are good and strong first sprint but it's rare that the first sprint is completely right it's a good question and I will be on assignment I'm not opinionated about that I think different companies have different ways that they build product that they do their day to day work and it I don't think it's reasonable to ask people to not only try this design in front of this new way of working but also change the way you do everything and I don't think it's necessary after i scrounged use Francis Reis principle whenever the team gets to the point that they have confident but this is a good direction this is something we should go then having that confidence will make whatever way you build things go better because you're not going to have that situation where you're at each other's throats three months later is you're like how are you totally disagree I like this fundamental thing about this you have that shared confidence from the beginning and it just makes everything go better so if it's you know if it's a dream it's like kind of waterfall like you know we think that it's like terrible but if you if you start with a really strong idea you make that prototype or a bust and then you say great let's go execute on it even if it's going to take us a while that can be okay yeah a good rule of thumb is quarterly that is one bit let's bring quarterly or maybe like a sprint with no follow-on kind of like a buck six on the stuff that we found this long okay so by pleading usually leading yeah thank them please try the biggest thing that usually sells people on the Sprint if they're skeptical is the idea that we're going to have a realistic prototype very quickly for skeptics the value of testing and it's often abstract until they see it hard to know that showing it to especially a small number of customers because people have questions that why would you use five and of course there's answers to that but you know I think that the other way that often suggests people sell it is let's let's do this as an experiment you know to be very candid about the reasons why you're running the Sprint in the first place which is usually you feel like we're moving too slow if you like we might be missing opportunity here or we're getting frustrated arguing with each other or we're you know the way we're spending our time is decision whatever it might be really candid about that to the other people on the team of the leaders or whoever and say like this seems like a worthy experiment for us to run it's working for lots of other teams and lots of other contexts and maybe we should give it a try so I think that's a good way to start actually I have not heard anyone say well we've ran on the Sprint of the huge wave you don't yeah it's kind of weird actually I mean it's almost it's almost fishy because there have been so many been run by this point I like people would be really angry and would would talk about it if it didn't work and I haven't heard that so I don't know that's not what I sound like a weak answer so that's something that's actually interesting right because the results of the user test at the end for sure they give you kind of a clear overview but is there like a danger that it's subjective there is I mean it gives you a it gives you a good idea of why people might understand or not understand it which is usually the biggest gap that people have with their with the product but what yeah what you don't have is that quantitative out there like we have mystics or statistical evidence that it works what do you find out that because I think that well I think that because the why is so hard to get and because you can get the why really fast if you operate in this way whereas it's it's hard to take a big risky bet and then get like quantitative data not that fast so I think it's ok but you are missing part of the picture I mean the quantitative data is super important I didn't you know we're take go for 10 years about having that hammer against in my head and I totally believe it you don't want to go for quantitative data so fast that you handcuffed yourself or taking risks and trying like local different things that's the best most company gets its quantitative data or nothing and then you're very limited in ways okay my business is my pleasure okay we can just leave it there I think that's Jake thanks a lot for coming out here in your lovely neighborhood in San Francisco this is actually Jake house you're sitting in right now it's not even help out no it's not indoors this is weird this review film indoors right now now that's the bathroom it's just the toilet you should see the other toilets now thanks a lot for taking the time out to do this interview I think everyone watching is going to be super happy with it and yes even if they're not eat like they're not [ __ ] [ __ ] you guys you know what not what you were going to say [Music]