Why design sprints are like SpaceX
Lessons from Google Relay
Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Steph is a smart ass, using a catchy title to associate what he does with one of the world’s most exciting and innovative companies. And you’re probably a little bit right. But (there’s always a but) there’s more to it than mere copywriting stunts. Let me explain:
This week, I was part of Google Relay, a small-scale unconference organized by Kai Haley (Head of UX Methods and Process) and her team. It was great, and I came back inspired and energized. This time, we focused on the current role of design sprints in the world, and their potential future(s).
My group deep-dived into “Measuring the Business Value of the Design Sprint.” We were lucky to work with very experienced facilitators; half of them were Googlers, and the other half were designer-consultants like yours truly, running design sprints with mainly large companies, or training them for years.
I had my pre-conceived idea on how to measure the value and impact of design sprints: “Simply measure how well the product performs after its launch, and how much money it brings. Maybe we can measure how much time was saved in the making and correlate it with the cost of employees involved .” Sounds pretty good right? But poor naïve Steph — it doesn’t exactly work that way. And it’s harder than you think.
After deep discussions about our respective contexts, we realized that we all quickly lose track of what happens with a project just weeks after the sprint. It’s logical when you think of it: different teams take over, maybe third-party vendors on different continents. The project transitions to execution mode. It’s not only us anymore. We were just the beginning of the story.
Maybe the project will go on to become a big success, but it won’t be thanks to our initial design sprint alone: a lot of hard work is done by a lot of people afterward. Maybe the project will pivot after several months. It may even fail and slowly die over the years. Again, this can’t be linked directly to the design sprint; so many things can happen in the months or years after. Bad execution, HR issues, budget cuts, poor marketing, crazy worldwide pandemics… you name it.
And at this point came the eye-opening realization. To truly measure the business value of our design sprints, we need to focus on the right timeframe (the beginning of the project), and we also need a simple analogy:
We are not NASA, we are SpaceX.
And this changes everything.
NASA’s mission is to put a Rover on Mars and to operate it for years. They hope to find droplets of water and maybe microbial alien life (or something like that). In short: it’s complex, it’s long, involves thousands of people, and it costs more than $2 billion per mission.
In order to accomplish this long-term, high-risk, expensive mission, NASA needs the services of SpaceX. And the only role of SpaceX in this entire endeavor is to put the spacecraft into orbit.
Yet, SpaceX’s mission is critical. Without them, no orbit, no space. They are an essential piece of the puzzle and therefore need to collaborate closely with the teams at NASA. They take the burden of a part of the mission where there’s really no margin for error, probably the most stressful part.
You got it: NASA is your long-term, high risk, expensive project, and SpaceX is the design sprint.
In one week, using an efficient timeboxed co-creation process, we’re going to put your project into “orbit” and give it the best chance of success. It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen after, but you can be reassured that this key project had as good a head start as it could get.
You could argue that NASA doesn’t really need SpaceX; they could operate the launch themselves. This was the case until 2011, but they don’t do it anymore — the NASA space shuttle is outdated, dangerous, crazy expensive, and simply not fit for purpose in 2021.
SpaceX, however, conducts launches better and cheaper, from which NASA can benefit.
Think about the opportunity cost of crashing your spacecraft during a bad lift-off if you’re NASA. You’d lose $2 billion in a few seconds, along with your reputation, and learn absolutely nothing. Your mission would be over before it had begun. This is what happens in many corporates when they try to launch innovation projects themselves. The cause is generally paperwork, lack of team alignment, silos, politics, or poor processes.
Even worse, some companies do manage to ignite important projects on their own, but it takes too long to get to full speed, so more agile competitors get there first.
Running design sprints and working with experienced facilitators will give the best chance of success for your important project. When you’re already in space, the mission gets easier; you can navigate as you go, and redefine parameters or objectives if needed. You’re off to a great start.
Now, back to earth 🌍. Another valuable takeaway from our workshop at Google Relay:
It’s probably too hard to calculate the exact impact or ROI of a design sprint on an overall long-term mission. You’d have to extrapolate. But keep in mind that many projects would never have existed if they hadn’t been launched with a design sprint. In these cases, we can safely assume that ROI is pretty strong.
And the big takeaway? Perhaps the number one reason why more and more companies run design sprints in 2021: at the end of the week, you always win. Actually, when we ask our clients or team members, “What was the biggest impact of the design sprint for you?” they usually mention culture change, new knowledge acquired, and — the most important — team alignment. Here is what we should measure.
This is what fuels innovation. And what makes it possible for us to help your project get to Mars 🚀
Steph is the CEO and founder of Design Sprint Ltd, based in Switzerland
PS: Many thanks to my group during Google Relay 🙏: Jörg Deckerhibbel, Sabrina Goerlich, John Vetan, Parita Kapadia, Marco Velasco, Jose Manuel Redondo, Di Dang and of course Kai Haley and Belinda Reichle for organizing it!
PP2: I don’t think SpaceX runs design sprints actually, Elon we’re here to help ;)
