The Importance of Teamwork in Design Sprints
The saying goes, “teamwork makes the dream work.” This is especially true when it comes to design sprints.
In the book “Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days,” authors Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz advise a sprint design team should only consist of seven people or less. The roles of each member should include the following:
- Decider
- Finance Expert
- Marketing Expert
- Customer Expert
- Tech/Logistics Expert
- Design Expert
In Elsie Boskamp's article, "35+ Compelling Workplace Collaboration Statistics [2023]: The Importance of Teamwork," Boskamp reports those who work in a collaborative setting are 50% more productive at completing tasks compared to those who work by themselves. Since sprint designs are only completed in five days, it’s important a small team working together in a short amount of time understand each other’s work habits and perspectives for collaboration to go smoothly.
When I first met with my Google Sprint team over Zoom, we worked on icebreakers by introducing ourselves, sharing some of our favorite hobbies, explaining our backgrounds and discussing the benefits and challenges of working in a group. Once we had a better understanding of each other and how we each work in a group setting, we were able to create a plan for how we will meet and work on our sprints.
The agreements we made include a meeting time, late policy, music playlist, no distraction policy and list of tools we could use such as Otter.ai, iMessage and more. Once we discussed a plan, we created a Miro board together. This process helped us not only lay out our ideas in a visual presentation, but we were able to see each team member’s design ideas, communication habits, personalities and overall collaboration styles come forth.
In Rasmus Belter's article, "How to transform the Design Sprint into a powerful Team Development Week," I learned a few important ways to build teams while working on a design sprint. The key to a successful sprint collaboration is building a strong team spirit.
“However, the Google Design Sprint is not primarily built for team development. It’s a five day huddle to innovate and design products that focus on the user perspective.” — Rasmus Belter
Some exercises Belter recommends include:
- Monday morning: Share personal stories
- Monday evening: Address the elephant in the room
- Tuesday: Ask questions to check in with the team in the morning and evening
- Wednesday: Encourage written feedback from everyone
- Friday: Have each team member reflect on the Design Sprint
By having design sprint teams bond, it will help improve communication and collaboration amongst the team. As mentioned earlier, strong collaboration can also help improve productivity.
As a sprint design team, it’s important to develop rules together. One important rule is no-devices. These devices include phones, tablets or even laptops.
“These devices can suck the momentum out of a sprint. If you’re looking at a screen, you’re not paying attention to what’s going on in the room, so you won’t be able to help the team.” — Knapp, Zeratsky and Kowitz
In research I conducted on the lack of focus Americans have from digital devices and social media, I found statistics from Vision Direct showed the average U.S. adult will spend 44 years of their life staring at screens, with 382,625 hours and 48 minutes over the average lifetime of 60.7 years. When a design sprit team sets rules of no devices, it can help control people’s screen time addictions and make people more present in the moment.
Once a team better understands one another along with the set rules, a well thought out and prepped sprint design will go from a cluster of ideas to a developed product in just five days. Design sprints are unique opportunities to work with others and network.