Key Point: Nike’s breakthrough slogan, “Just Do It,” was brilliant. It promoted and celebrated the principle of forward movement without seeking permission or being burdened by judgment. While all of us are not necessarily naturally great athletes, we are all athletic in the context of moving… “Doing it.” Trying something! The same concept applies to life and business overall if one opens themselves to the idea of celebrating the principles of prototyping or testing. So, in the spirit and inspiration of Nike, allow me to introduce you (if you haven’t already met) to the process described as the SPRINT!
Too often we are bitten by the notion of perfection or burdened by the old fashioned limitations of traditional project management. There are numerous problems related to this way of thinking. Many times building to “perfection” involves a big investment of resources before testing or prototyping whether our idea or solution is workable. We assume “requirement gathering” is sufficient for product or service development, and eventually, production. Everything has to be “right” before we make a move to full production and often the first time a customer is really introduced to a product or service is when it’s offered to the market. The risk associated with this framework is that the size of the bet can become very big. Large investments of time and/or money connected to big bets on the risk reward continuum can be scary. We are better off under that scenario to stop or do nothing. Or we “bet the farm” and hope our market customer research was right and the eventual product is a reasonable facsimile of what we intended. This is where the SPRINT process comes into play.
In the spirit of moving with speed and rigor, what if we embraced the learning of the folks at Google Ventures (GV)? At GV, they’ve run what they describe as sprints with companies like Nest, Flatiron Health, and Medium—to help them enter new markets, design new products, develop new features for millions of users, define marketing strategies, and much more. Over the last few years, teams around the world have adopted this system of sprinting. (They’re collecting their stories at SprintStories.com). In their book, naturally entitled SPRINT, the authors (Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz) introduce a very detailed and specific five-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers. They boldly and confidently describe it as a “greatest hits” of business strategy, innovation, behavior science, design thinking, and more.
Character Moves:
- The idea of more speed, agility, and rigor that dramatically improves the time and investment for a successful outcome has evoked much attention over the last few years. The five day print process developed by GV is just one of many such methodologies; most with common process elements (for example, agile/design thinking). The key thing is to learn the principles underlying these fast/agile processes and try testing them (regardless of which process best suits you) BOTH in and out of work situations.
- Try focused and fast testing/prototyping all kinds of stuff before making the big bet. This applies to whether you want to make fly fishing a hobby, start a business, or try out ideas in your work area, and more. Try sprinting! It’s aerobically and financially healthy.
Sprinting in The Triangle,
Lorne
One Millennial View: I like this concept. Nothing is worse than dwelling on an idea for too long and never executing. I don’t believe that in this day and age customers/clients will only accept a one-and-done pitch. The best ideas seem to be tested regularly, grow, evolve, change and develop a winning format through trial and error. Who performs better? The person who hits the track and sprints right away, or the one who puts off training because they’re spending a bunch of time and money saving up for the best running shoes? No matter what’s on their feet, I’m willing to bet the first one winds up in better shape.
– Garrett
Edited and published by Garrett Rubis