Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,510 JAKE KNAPP: Thank you guys for coming to our talk.

  • I know there's a lot of other amazing talks going

  • on at this moment right now at I/O. We almost

  • didn't come to this talk because there's so many good ones.

  • So super appreciate it.

  • We're going to talk to you guys today about design sprints.

  • And you actually totally scored by coming to this talk

  • because it's not just one talk, but two, two in one.

  • And first we're going to talk about design sprints

  • at Google Ventures with startups,

  • and then we're going to hear about designs

  • sprints at big Google.

  • So first of all Daniel and I are going

  • to talk to you about what we do at Google Ventures.

  • So Daniel and I are design partners at Google Ventures.

  • And we're going to tell you how to prototype and test

  • pretty much any product in just five days.

  • So Daniel take it away.

  • DANIEL BURKA: Well, before I even

  • get started I want to talk to you guys

  • about a problem I've got.

  • Unfortunately it's a really big problem.

  • In fact, it's a Super Mario scale problem,

  • a really big Super Mario scale problem.

  • I love Mario.

  • I have since it first came out.

  • And so you can imagine, this is going to date me a little bit,

  • but I was super excited when they announced the DS

  • and announced that they were making the new Super Mario

  • Brothers where you could become giant Mario.

  • And so at the time I was living in eastern Canada,

  • way off on the edge of the continent,

  • in a little place called Prince Edward Island where I grew up.

  • And I didn't have a whole lot of disposable income at the time,

  • but it was just after Christmas, and I

  • had gotten some cash gifts from some family.

  • And I was thinking, aw, you know,

  • I could totally get one of those things,

  • and it would be awesome.

  • I already had a little sneaking suspicion

  • that I had maybe a bit of an addiction problem with Mario,

  • but I decided, you know what?

  • Screw it.

  • I'm going to go get one anyway.

  • And so I drove up to this place called

  • the Future Shop in Charlotte Town.

  • I swear to God it's called the Future Shop.

  • It's like Best Buy.

  • And it was no less inviting in January

  • then as this photo, which I grabbed off Google Maps,

  • is now.

  • This is the actual shop, a real photo of it.

  • And so I went in there, and I threw down my hard earned

  • money.

  • And it was awesome.

  • It was just everything I imagined it would be.

  • So I played it.

  • And I played it a lot.

  • I played it every single day for about three months straight.

  • I beat every single level.

  • And then I beat every single level plus the secret levels,

  • then every single level plus the secret levels

  • with all the coins on every level.

  • And then on the DS you could have three different lives

  • per game.

  • And so I beat it once.

  • I beat it again.

  • And then I beat it again even faster.

  • And it was at the end of March.

  • And I was just about to reset the device so I could do it

  • three more times, and I was like, oh, fuck this.

  • And I put in a box, and I mailed it off my sister

  • in Los Angeles.

  • And I never saw the damn thin again.

  • But unfortunately I was out about $170

  • that I didn't really have to burn

  • and three months of my life.

  • I swear to God, I played hours of this game.

  • JAKE KNAPP: Well, to throw into sharp contrast what an idiot

  • Daniel is I want to tell you a story of my own.

  • And this also involves Nintendo.

  • This is from a simpler time.

  • So if you remember when Nintendo looked like this.

  • Raise your hand if you remember.

  • Oh, OK.

  • Awesome.

  • All right, great.

  • I'm glad that some of you are also old.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • JAKE KNAPP: So my story takes place in the year 1986.

  • And it's actually a story about my wife

  • who was nine years old in 1986.

  • As was I, although I didn't know her at the time.

  • And like all nine year olds in the United States in 1986,

  • I don't know about Canada, but everyone wanted a Nintendo.

  • And this is what the Nintendo looked like.

  • It was a big box.

  • And everybody was so excited about it.

  • But it costs a lot of money.

  • So it cost $199, which if you adjust that for inflation it's

  • over $400.

  • It's a lot of money at any time if your nine years old.

  • Actually, Daniel, I don't know for you Canadians.

  • Hopefully this will help.

  • 00:03:45,304 --> 00:03:47,470 DANIEL BURKA: I have to deal with this all the time.

  • Thanks.

  • JAKE KNAPP: This is actually how much

  • maple syrup you can buy for $200 in case you guys were curious.

  • And leaders is spelled the Canadian way.

  • Craftsmanship here.

  • So anyway, my wife is very industrious.

  • And she scrimped and saved.

  • She did chores around the neighborhood,

  • and she saved up her allowance.

  • And finally, finally she had $200.

  • She was ready to make the purchase.

  • And then right at the last minute she got cold feet.

  • She was like, oh my gosh, I saved up all this money,

  • I don't know if I should do this, I'm only nine years old.

  • I don't know if she thought that, but she wasn't sure.

  • And so she made this really unusual arrangement that for $4

  • she would rent a Nintendo from her neighbor.

  • And she'd have it all day Saturday, all day Sunday.

  • She could play it as much as she wanted, all the games, you

  • know, the laser gun, everything.

  • And I think that what my wife envisioned

  • was something like this.

  • So this is a photo from Nintendo on the box at the time.

  • And this is kind of like captures

  • the scene of excitement that everyone had about Nintendo.

  • If you look closely at these brothers

  • you'll notice that they don't even

  • seem to notice Super Mario Brothers is actually

  • a one player game.

  • But that's what it was like.

  • I mean, it was so great.

  • And so she pictured this, and she

  • pictured the family gathered, and everybody,

  • you know, watching her play.

  • And the reality was more like this.

  • And this is not a photo.

  • This is an artist's interpretation

  • that my wife was really excited about when she saw it.

  • But this is what it was like.

  • She's up till 3:00, 4:00 AM, you know, eyes bloodshot,

  • barely sleeping, playing Nintendo the entire time.

  • And by the end of the weekend when she gave the Nintendo back

  • she realized I cannot handle owning a Nintendo.

  • And she came to this realization after just $4

  • and 48 hours of her time.

  • This idea of renting before you buy we think also

  • applies to product development.

  • And that's the essence of what we're

  • going to talk to you about today.

  • DANIEL BURKA: So the way that we typically

  • see design and development done at startups

  • is that you come up with an idea, a hypothesis,

  • something that might be really great for your product.

  • And then you build the lightest weight version of it

  • that you can, you know a simple V1.

  • You really boil it down.

  • Launch it into the wild, measure the results,

  • learn from those results, and then iterate around the circle.

  • Also from our experience this is actually not a great way

  • to operate as a startup.

  • And what really happens in the real world is

  • you frequently are starting with a bad idea.

  • And that's fine.

  • I mean, that's the whole point of a hypothesis

  • is something you're not sure of that you want to test.

  • But then you spend a lot of time actually building out

  • that idea, and this invariably takes

  • much longer than you think it will.

  • You've now invested the time, and so you

  • feel like there's no going back.

  • Aw, we better launch this thing and see what happens.

  • And where you're expecting to have really nice statistics

  • and learn whether or not something works,

  • it's usually much muddier than you hope it will be.

  • And what's that quote?

  • There's lies, damn lies, and statistics.

  • And then when you're supposed to be iterating again,

  • you actually just move on to the next shiny idea.

  • And your products out in the while.

  • And it's gumming up the works.

  • You've got all this code now in your code base

  • that you no longer want.

  • It's really hard to go back at that point.

  • So we're trying to do at Google Ventures

  • is we're trying to shortcut that process.

  • Over the course of a week we ideate and flesh out an idea,

  • we prototype it, and then we test it.

  • And we call that a five day design sprint.

  • JAKE KNAPP: I want to tell you just a super fast bit more

  • about Google Ventures in case you're not familiar with it.

  • You probably have heard of Google.

  • If you haven't, you should totally check it out.

  • It's a create search engine.

  • But Google Ventures is actually a small, separate company.

  • So about 50, 60 employees.

  • And basically what happens is Google gives us money,

  • and we in turn invest it in startups.

  • So we've invested in 250 startups so far.

  • And as design partners Daniel, and I,

  • and the other three design partners on the team,

  • it's our job to help those companies make the best

  • products possible so they'll be successful.

  • And we've done this with countless different companies.

  • But the story that I want to tell you about today

  • is actually about a coffee company.

  • So Blue Bottle Coffee.

  • I'm not sure how many of you have heard about it.

  • Somebody.

  • So actually a coffee company, not just

  • a clever name for a startup.

  • But if you're not familiar, they have a number of shops

  • here in San Francisco, a bunch in New York City.

  • And if you were to go to the ferry building, which is not

  • far from here-- If you're from out of town

  • you should totally check it out.

  • There's a bunch of shops inside the ferry building for tourists

  • and commuters, and there's one in particular

  • that always has a long line kind of going down the hallway.

  • And it's not the store that sells only mushrooms.

  • It's actually Blue Bottle Coffee.

  • And here's the line.

  • And in fact, if you look closely at that line

  • you might recognize a familiar sort

  • of praying mantis style figure.

  • DANIEL BURKA: A praying mantis who

  • only apparently owns one shirt.

  • Nice.

  • JAKE KNAPP: That's my favorite shirt.

  • DANIEL BURKA: It looks good.

  • JAKE KNAPP: As I was saying before I was so rudely

  • interrupted, it's a fantastic cafe.

  • And they have this beautiful interior design

  • some wonderfully friendly, knowledgeable baristas,

  • and great coffee.

  • Their shops are very successful.

  • It's a successful business.

  • But they have a problem.

  • it's with their web store.

  • They felt like it could be a bigger part of their business,

  • and it wasn't living up to what they wanted.

  • So after we invested in them they came to our design team

  • and said, could you help us out with this.

  • So we decided to do a design sprint.

  • And the first thing we do in a design sprint

  • is to manufacture a deadline.

  • One reason why people like to ship early and ship often

  • is because shipping creates a deadline.

  • It helps us get things done.

  • I don't know about you guys, but I'm

  • kind of a natural procrastinator.

  • And the deadline that we create in our sprints

  • is also external facing, but we do it with user studies.

  • So on Monday, the first day of the sprint,

  • we'll schedule five customers outside to come in

  • and interview.

  • And they're going to look at a prototype

  • that we haven't designed yet.

  • So right away we're like, oh my gosh, the fuse is lit.

  • Like we have to get something done.

  • Another key for us on the first day

  • is getting all the right people in the room for the sprint.

  • And there are more right people at most companies

  • than you'd think.

  • It makes sense to have the people who

  • are going to be working on the product,

  • and building it, and designing it.

  • But we've also found it's critical to have

  • the founder, the decision makers, the people who really

  • understand on the ground how the product works,

  • and how customers are interacting with it.

  • We all need to work together, because in this case

  • understanding how you sell coffee beans online,

  • it's actually not straightforward.

  • I didn't know how to do it heading into the sprint.

  • And so another thing that we do on day one

  • is to look at things out in the world

  • and see if we can find interesting patterns.

  • So we look at a bunch of successful coffee websites,

  • and we saw this pattern right away

  • that coffee is organized quite commonly by region.

  • So you can see it here.

  • Latin America, Africa.

  • Here it is again, Africa, the Americas.

  • Again here.

  • This is the menu at Starbucks.

  • Starbucks obviously knows a thing or two about marketing.

  • You can see Guatemalan coffee, Colombian.

  • And actually would you guys raise your hand

  • if you know the difference between Guatemala

  • and Colombian coffee.

  • Does anyone here know the difference?

  • OK.

  • So a couple of you do know, which is awesome.

  • But the rest of you should not feel bad

  • because as it turns out normal humans don't get this.

  • I mean, most of the people in this room didn't understand.

  • DANIEL BURKA: Heck, we even had a guy came in

  • for one of the user studies who told us

  • that he roasted his own beans at home.

  • So he's buying green beans, he's roasting them himself,

  • and then brewing his own coffee.

  • And even he sheepishly admitted when we asked him.

  • He's like, ah, when I go to a cafe I never

  • know really what the difference is.

  • JAKE KNAPP: We're like, dude, like you roast your own beans.

  • If you don't know nobody knows.

  • And don't feel bad.

  • So this is like a big challenge for us.

  • Like how should we organize the beans

  • and help people decide what to have shipped to their home

  • if people don't understand the regions?

  • We asked Blue Bottle, because they really

  • wanted to take the in-store experience

  • and kind of bring it to the web.

  • And we said, well, like how do you guys do this in the store?

  • If somebody comes in and they're looking at all

  • these brown paper bags, and they want to buy some beans,

  • how do you guide them through that decision?

  • And they said, oh, well, when somebody

  • asks for a suggestion we turn around and say, how do you

  • make your coffee at home, because whether you make it

  • in a French press, or a Chemex, or a drip machine that's

  • going to help us recommend a great roast for you.

  • And I remember when they said that.

  • I was looking at Daniel and his eyes got big.

  • And it was as if this beam of inspiration

  • like shown in from outside.

  • DANIEL BURKA: Just like that.

  • Exactly.

  • JAKE KNAPP: It was just like that.

  • This is a photograph, so you know

  • that it's exactly how it happened.

  • And that kind of insight actually only comes to us

  • because we have the whole team together.

  • We have people who understand every part of the product.

  • And that turns out to be true across all kinds of companies.

  • So on the second day we've got a bunch of insights from day one.

  • We want to come up with a bunch of different solutions

  • to compete with each other.

  • So we don't just take one idea and run with it off the bat.

  • And the way we do that is with drawing.

  • But I want to make sure you understand

  • we're not doing group brainstorming.

  • So we found that group brainstorming just

  • does not yield high quality results.

  • Instead what we want are individuals spending

  • a long time, so an hour, two hours, sketching very detailed,

  • very well thought through, and very

  • divergent opposing solutions.

  • By the end of the day we've got 10, 12 different designs that

  • are all very detailed, and they compete with each other.

  • They can help us pick from a number of different options.

  • That choice though is not so easy.

  • And if any of you know, you may have been in meetings

  • like this where you're kind of discussing

  • things, and intellectualizing, and try

  • to imagine like which solution will

  • work best in the real world.

  • And, you know, we want to get some wisdom from everybody,

  • but we also don't want design by committee.

  • And the way we kind of hack the decision making process

  • is something we call weighted voting.

  • So first we'll give everybody as many

  • as they want of these little blue stickers.

  • And you put the stickers by the parts of ideas that you like.

  • So very quickly we get a heat map

  • on all these drawings of the parts

  • of the ideas that work best.

  • Next, we talk to the company about how they make decisions.

  • In this case, James the founder, Katie the COO,

  • they're the ones who really need to make

  • the call on which prototype we build,

  • on which design goes forward.

  • So we give them a number of these very big red dots,

  • and they have a limited quantity.

  • In this case they pick three designs.

  • So first there's this idea of recreating the cafe.

  • So what if we literally took the interior design of a Blue

  • Bottle Cafe and made a website that looked that way?

  • The second idea is storytelling.

  • Over the last day and a half we've

  • heard all of this great knowledge and expertise

  • from talking to the Blue Bottle folks,

  • and we wonder what happens if we just

  • write a lot of that stuff on the website.

  • And then third, there's that idea

  • of organizing beans by the way you brew your coffee at home.

  • Problem is we've got like three different ideas,

  • and we still have to make a prototype, right?

  • So we decided to do, in this case,

  • is what we call a Battle Royale.

  • We're going to pit the three prototypes against each other,

  • and we're actually going to build all three.

  • Problem is, it's already Thursday,

  • and we only have one day, and it seems

  • like there couldn't possibly be enough time.

  • DANIEL BURKA: So we're going to build

  • three prototypes in a single day.

  • And we're not going to stay up until 4:00 in the morning

  • to do it.

  • We've got a few fancy tricks in order to get there.

  • The first, is that when we were doing the sketching

  • we were not just sketching individual screens.

  • We were sketching little three step or four step flows.

  • So when we unpack the ideas that we want to make,

  • we're able to lay them out in a storyboard.

  • And this is, running from the top,

  • a storyboard of the 15 or 20 screens

  • that a user will run through.

  • And we can just translate those right onto the board.

  • And then, as Jake was saying earlier,

  • when people were doing the sketching

  • they weren't BSing it.

  • They were taking the time to write real copy.

  • They were putting where the image might be,

  • where buttons might be, what realistic micro copy there's

  • going to be.

  • And so we're able to just take it from low fidelity

  • and push it up to a much higher fidelity.

  • And to move to that level of fidelity

  • we actually choose intelligent tools.

  • And we're not working in Photoshop generally.

  • We often work in Keynote for instance.

  • This is a Keynote mock from the Blue Bottle sprint.

  • And we find it gives us that Goldilocks level of fidelity.

  • It's neither so basic that users know

  • that they're in a prototype, but it's also

  • not a good enough tool to do production design where we're

  • spending a lot of time polishing buttons

  • and making everything look exactly perfect.

  • We just want it to be good enough to suspend disbelief.

  • Keynote also has the advantage that many people on the team

  • can contribute to it.

  • It's a low barrier to entry design tool.

  • And then we use things like Keynotopia,

  • which is a little toolkit that you can buy first

  • for Keynote to drag and drop form elements into the mocks,

  • so we're not redoing things from scratch every time.

  • It helps us move really, really fast.

  • So in the end we've taken these three different ideas

  • and stitched together 15 to 20 step

  • prototypes of each one of them.

  • We've got this one under the brand Telescope Coffee that

  • is exploring the storytelling, Lindon Alley Coffee, which

  • is doing this kind of skeumorphic version

  • of the store, and Potting Shed Coffee, which

  • is doing the filtering interface for choosing coffees.

  • JAKE KNAPP: So it's Friday.

  • And all week long this fuse has been shortening.

  • Now the bomb's going to go off.

  • This is an amazing drawing that I

  • did in Keynote of an explosion.

  • But it's time for us to find out which prototype

  • is going to succeed.

  • So we're doing the research.

  • And I want to talk for just one second

  • about research, because a lot of companies,

  • both small and large, are reluctant to do user research.

  • And one big barrier is that people

  • feel like it's going to be really hard and complicated.

  • People think, ah, I need to have a behavioral psychologist

  • on our team to run the interviews,

  • and we need a special room with like a one way mirror,

  • and like a laser eye tracker.

  • And the reality is you really don't need much.

  • This is our very fancy set up.

  • It's a laptop.

  • And on the laptop we're running Keynote full screen.

  • We've pasted a browser bar on the slide

  • so it looks like you're running a browser.

  • And there's a webcam.

  • And using GoTo Meeting, or Apple TV,

  • will project into another room so that the rest of the team

  • can watch while one person from our team

  • conducts the interview with these customers who

  • we've recruited.

  • So we do five one on one interviews.

  • And each interview we're showing the customers the three

  • prototypes.

  • We're showing them the existing Blue Bottle website,

  • so we get kin d of a baseline.

  • And what's great about this is we

  • get really good, really deep data from just those five

  • users.

  • We'll hear a lot about why things work and don't work.

  • We'll get a sense from watching people react about

  • whether they understand parts of the designs.

  • So the results of our Battle Royale

  • are clear at the end of Friday.

  • And this idea of recreating the cafe totally bombed, which

  • is disappointing to me personally

  • because it's the design I worked on.

  • But it's actually really good news

  • if you're Blue Bottle, because they didn't

  • have to build, and launch, and then

  • wait to get those results from the wild.

  • And you remember that this was an idea that we really

  • liked before we tested it.

  • So it's great.

  • We dodged a bullet.

  • And it turns out that both this idea of storytelling

  • and the idea of sorting by how you brew at home

  • were very successful.

  • And that's also kind of cool because both of those ideas

  • were a bit risky.

  • Putting a lot of text on a website

  • isn't what you suspect will normally work.

  • And nobody else was organizing coffee in that way,

  • so if they just had one shot at it

  • they might not have taken those risks.

  • Now they had the confidence that these ideas worked,

  • and they went ahead and did the ship early, ship often thing.

  • And so they designed the full site.

  • And here's what it looks like in the wild today.

  • So you can see you organize the coffee by how you brew at home.

  • And you might recognize this from the sketches.

  • A lot of that copy is still there.

  • You see this really long block of text.

  • And conventional wisdom, don't put a lot of copy on the web.

  • People aren't going to read it.

  • Turns out, we know that it builds confidence

  • that these guys are legit and they

  • know a lot about the coffee.

  • They launched this website, and it did quite well.

  • So they doubled the time spent on site,

  • and in turn they doubled their sales growth, which is great.

  • That's exactly what they were hoping

  • for from this part of their business.

  • But you may be thinking like this is just a website.

  • DANIEL BURKA: So we've done these types of sprints

  • with many different companies.

  • Part of the reason we chose Blue Bottle

  • is because it's a pretty simple story to tell,

  • but it's also a pretty simple app when you look at it.

  • You know, everybody's designed an e-commerce site before.

  • We've done lots and lots of mobile prototypes as well.

  • This is an example from a sprint we

  • did with a company called Cluster.

  • So you can see we're using a similar method

  • to sketch it out, similar ideation.

  • Here we're designing in Keynote, piecing it altogether,

  • and then we're dragging it into an app called Flinto, which

  • is an excellent mobile prototyping tool, which

  • means that we can get it onto device.

  • And we've developed two comps here in a single day.

  • As you can see, they look and feel

  • a lot like a real mobile app, even though they're just

  • static images stitched together.

  • They've got buttons and transitions.

  • The title bar stays still.

  • It's good enough to suspend disbelief

  • so we can get really, really valuable feedback

  • from the users.

  • And the second brand, same kind of idea,

  • all put together in a single day.

  • And the set up is really similar for user studies too.

  • Just a document camera over top of the device.

  • And we have the person actually interacting on a phone.

  • We've done iPad prototypes.

  • This is a company called FitStar that does a mobile fitness app.

  • And here we were actually prototyping--

  • I'm not sure this is going to go.

  • We were actually prototyping motion and sound

  • on this prototype.

  • And so there's actually video playing,

  • and we were recording audio during the prototyping phase.

  • So we were actually prototyping an audio interface

  • where you're stepped back three or four feet from the iPad,

  • and it's giving you instructions out loud.

  • And that was a really interesting study that we did.

  • See if we can get to the next slide here.

  • Maybe if I press it harder.

  • JAKE KNAPP: This is pretty exciting.

  • I'm going to go try to physically press the button.

  • DANIEL BURKA: All right.

  • I don't know.

  • My technique might be off.

  • 00:21:43,216 --> 00:21:45,631 JAKE KNAPP: Guys just talk amongst yourselves for a moment

  • here.

  • I'm sure we'll be ready to go in no time.

  • DANIEL BURKA: Oh boy.

  • Jake's the funny one.

  • JAKE KNAPP: Yeah, so a skeleton walks into a bar.

  • And he says--

  • DANIEL BURKA: Oh here we go Jake.

  • It's moving.

  • JAKE KNAPP: I'd like a beer and a mop.

  • DANIEL BURKA: Oh geesh.

  • JAKE KNAPP: Thank you.

  • Thank you for laughing at that joke.

  • DANIEL BURKA: So you can see a bunch of video and audio

  • as well.

  • And then the examples I just gave you,

  • everything I've shown you thus far has all

  • been consumer stuff.

  • And so it's easy to recruit users for consumer things,

  • because they're similar to us, and there's lots of people

  • all over the world who fit that demographic.

  • But we've actually done work with many different startups

  • in many different areas.

  • We've recruited people like geneticists and oncologists,

  • woodworkers, truckers even for one of the studies

  • that we did, and 80 other companies across a wide variety

  • of industries, everything from small startups

  • to big enterprises.

  • JAKE KNAPP: So we're investing in these companies,

  • and we want them to be successful.

  • We think this is an excellent process for them

  • to use to build confidence quickly.

  • And if you guys are interested in running a sprint like this,

  • there's kind of three key ideas that I

  • think you ought to remember.

  • One of them is creating time pressure.

  • It turns out that you can manufacture a deadline

  • in a lot of ways.

  • The second is getting into a prototype mindset.

  • And we try to figure out how to build something high fidelity

  • as quickly as possible, rather than building something real.

  • Just creating a veneer of reality.

  • And finally, getting in this mode of doing quick research,

  • which really doesn't have to be very complicated.

  • We hear this phrase a lot around Silicon Valley,

  • and I don't think it's necessarily like a bad idea,

  • but we just want to edit it a little bit, because what

  • everybody really ought to be doing

  • is learning early and learning often.

  • And when you do it that way you'll

  • find that you can really build great products with a lot more

  • confidence, or as my wife would say, rent before you buy.

  • If you guys are interested in running sprints

  • we've written a series of blog posts about how

  • to run your own sprint, everything

  • from the kind of pins you should buy to all the way

  • through to how to run the research.

  • If you go to gv.com/designsprint you'll find the whole series.

  • We've heard from a lot of people who never actually talked

  • to us, and successfully runned sprints using that DIY guide.

  • And thank you very much.

  • That is the end of the first talk.

  • Now, you may have one lingering question about design sprints,

  • which is like if I work at a big company,

  • like this is great at the startup,

  • but how do I make this work?

  • And I actually created the design sprint process

  • when I worked at Google.

  • And I ran a bunch of different sprints

  • with a bunch of teams across Google.

  • But I wasn't sure if it could really

  • stick in a large organization, which Google is.

  • Nadya Direkova is a staff designer and design evangelist

  • at Google.

  • And she's taken the design process, made some hacks to it,

  • made some hacks to Google's culture,

  • and been able to do over 80 sprints on some really

  • awesome products.

  • I'm very excited to introduce you to Nadya.

  • And she's going to tell you how it's done at Google.

  • So without further ado, here's Nadya.

  • NADYA DIREKOVA: Thank you.

  • 00:24:55,930 --> 00:24:56,870 Thank you, Daniel.

  • Thank you, Jake.

  • I'm really excited to be here today.

  • I've been looking forward to this because very rarely

  • do we get a chance to talk about how we do design at Google.

  • And with the design sprints we have

  • something that's really cool and unique.

  • Is it cool and unique because design matters for all of us.

  • And speed matters.

  • If you're a startup up, you're running out of money

  • as soon as you raise them.

  • And if you're a large company you

  • might have a team and a goal that

  • is so large that by the time that you meet it

  • it becomes obsolete.

  • By combining speed and design we are creating design sprints

  • to help a number of products advance their goals.

  • That helps us avoid wasting time, money,

  • and precious ideas.

  • It is true what Jake said.

  • I have done 80 design sprints.

  • And perhaps I should warn you, it's

  • an addictive way of working.

  • Once you start you don't know where you're going to end up.

  • I have not done these sprints by myself.

  • In every case there's been a talented team

  • that worked with me to compile their goals

  • and to decide how and where they want to end up.

  • So today I want to share with you some stories about sprint

  • at Google X, sprints at Google at scale,

  • and I want to give you five hacks about how

  • you might be able to do your own sprints.

  • Let's start with Google X. As you know,

  • X is the new product laboratory, and we developed things

  • like the self driving cars.

  • That was also the first large sprint that I did.

  • The team came to me, and they said,

  • we want to create a shared vision of how this product can

  • be not just an amazing scientific discovery but also

  • an amazing product for people.

  • As I started talking to them I realized

  • that an interesting thing is that by the nature of their job

  • each of them are focused on different time frames.

  • Some people are focused on the short term,

  • and some people are focused on the long term.

  • In addition, what was going to be

  • available for the team in terms of technology and capacity

  • changes over time.

  • So what's available today, tomorrow, and in four years

  • from now really expands.

  • The technology frontier for anyone expands over time.

  • So how do you create the shared vision for something

  • that changes so much, and where people already

  • perceive it in different ways?

  • What we did is create two teams in parallel.

  • In five days we were able to create even more output

  • by sending one team with requirements

  • for working two years from now, and another team

  • working with requirements for four years from now.

  • They were able to create really exciting vision videos,

  • and show the team kind of like a postcard of what

  • might be happening in the future and help make better choices.

  • That was one week out of many, but a very interesting week.

  • 00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,500 One day I walked into campus and I saw this.

  • And I thought what is this?

  • This is one of the balloons for Project Loon.

  • The team is sending these balloons in the air

  • in order to help distribute internet

  • for parts of the world that don't really get it.

  • It's an amazing project.

  • It gives me a sense of wonder.

  • At the same time what was really important

  • for them to create great antennas so

  • the signal that's sent from the air

  • can be received on the ground.

  • So the talented design team at the design kitchen at Google X

  • ran a design sprint.

  • They came together.

  • They explored different ideas.

  • And they made prototypes, like hardware prototypes,

  • like various different kinds of antennas that they can test.

  • What's interesting about it is that if you put an antenna

  • on a conference room table, you cannot tell if it's too large,

  • too small, or if it's easy to install.

  • It doesn't give you a lot of information.

  • So you actually have to try putting

  • the antennae on different pieces of something

  • that kind of looks like a house.

  • And, in fact, they built a house mock up in order

  • to be able to do that like that.

  • How cool is that?

  • If you go to your team and say, let's

  • build a house so we can test our ideas,

  • they might think you're crazy.

  • But that might also be the right thing

  • to do if you want to test your idea if it's

  • related to something like that.

  • Glass is another team that uses sprints

  • internally as one of the toolkits.

  • But they also pioneered the idea of design sprints

  • for developers, for you guys.

  • So the Glass development team invites developers

  • to come and learn about the platform.

  • What are the design requirements?

  • How do you make something good with this?

  • They had a chance to try the hardware,

  • to come up with different ideas, and quickly

  • put the ideas from a Post-it into something that's

  • like a functional prototype.

  • It all happens in about four hours.

  • The sprint is not very long.

  • And they logged their ideas.

  • And now they can see what they've made.

  • And they can get feedback too.

  • Quick learning.

  • Exciting experience.

  • So you see how this works pretty cool for a product

  • lab like Google X. But does it work at scale?

  • If you have a huge team and a huge goal how does it happen?

  • Indeed, we have found that sprints

  • have become very popular with teams across the company.

  • It's become one of the ways in which the teams work,

  • from Google Fiber to Hangouts.

  • In fact, if you have used Hangouts to call your mom

  • please thank Jake over here.

  • The guy created the idea of design sprints

  • at Google working with team, and he used the sprint

  • to create an early version of what became Hangouts

  • as a product.

  • The team that's working on Hangouts

  • is also using design sprints to redesign and launch new UIs.

  • So if that's not a design feat, I don't know what is.

  • The sprints here helped us work with teams of four people,

  • and up to teams of 175.

  • I'm not kidding.

  • We literally had that many sprinters

  • in a recent sprint one month ago.

  • I want to share a video with you that gives you

  • a sense of what it's like to be a part of this large sprint,

  • where teams are running in parallel in order

  • to meet goals in a very shortened time frame.

  • [VIDEO PLAYBACK]

  • -Great design happens within constraints.

  • And those constraints are good because it

  • helps narrow your focus.

  • There's something about pressure, and in many cases

  • conflict, that creates good things.

  • -So in our context a sprint is a very focused, intense period

  • where we have a team of people coming together

  • from different disciplines and focusing

  • on solving a specific design problem.

  • -Too often there's a process where one group works

  • on something, and then they hand it to the next group,

  • and then that group hands it to the next group.

  • And something gets lost in translation.

  • So this is a mechanism where we can all get together

  • on the same page, and you get much more tangible results much

  • more quickly.

  • -The ability to kind of leapfrog the traditional design process

  • is incredible.

  • -I think a lot of people's idea of creativity

  • is you have this freedom, you know,

  • leaning back in your chair and just imagining things.

  • And it's really not like that anymore.

  • -Watching what was going on yesterday,

  • there was a lot of arguing.

  • There was a lot of dissatisfaction,

  • and they had to figure their way through that.

  • And so today they're actually testing their prototypes

  • and changing tack a little bit.

  • And that's kind of the magic of it.

  • When you see these transitions that these teams go through.

  • -A lot of what comes out of sprint week

  • is this intangible camaraderie that

  • helps us work better together.

  • But the second part are the projects.

  • -What we're trying to do here is create very high quality

  • deliverables that turn into real products.

  • -An actual artifact at the end that you can then

  • take to engineering to build, or you can take to customers

  • to get more feedback on.

  • We hope that there will be a lot of the projects

  • that people are working on that will get picked up

  • in some form or another.

  • But there's really no losers.

  • When you participate in a sprint you either win or you learn.

  • 00:33:24,556 --> 00:33:25,510 [END VIDEO PLAYBACK]

  • NADYA DIREKOVA: All right.

  • Win or learn.

  • That's the spirit of the sprint.

  • You win when you get to make something awesome

  • and get totally shocked at how fast you can run.

  • And then you learn if you create something

  • that advances your goals.

  • You know how to do it better next time.

  • So you might have your design process

  • and your own way of working.

  • I want to share five hacks with you that

  • will help you compress your design

  • process from a large piece to something that's short,

  • a week or less.

  • We're hoping that these hacks will help you.

  • First is to be aware that the sprint is something to design.

  • It's worth putting the effort into it,

  • and here's the workflow for a typical sprint.

  • There's work before, during, and after.

  • Before the sprint you want to make sure

  • that you're solving the right problem.

  • It doesn't matter if you create something

  • that no one wants to use or it's not

  • useful in your organization.

  • So you need to focus on a challenge.

  • You want to create a team.

  • Bring the right people together.

  • Schedule the sprint so that it makes sense and every minute

  • is planned.

  • During the sprint it's about letting the teams experience

  • the right set of design methods and research methods.

  • And it's about working as fast as you can,

  • helping resolve the conflicts, looking

  • for that deeper insight.

  • After the sprint it's all about making sure

  • that the results are pointing towards launch.

  • You want to be successful.

  • I want to draw your attention here

  • to how much effort is involved before and after.

  • Many people skip that part, and they only

  • focus on the middle of the sprint.

  • It's so exciting, let's just run and make amazing things.

  • You want to make sure that you're prepared,

  • and that you're pointing towards launch before and after so

  • that you can be successful in order to create.

  • Now, here's another hack.

  • Because the design sprint is a unique way of working we

  • have also created a new role.

  • We call that the sprint master.

  • This is the person who's going to be the CEO of the project

  • and make sure for the duration of the sprint everybody's

  • working at an amazing pace.

  • Now, this is not a duck with a snorkel.

  • It's a ninja.

  • These people are awesome.

  • So here's Jin.

  • He's the designer and the sprint master.

  • Here's Marty.

  • He's a designer and the sprint master.

  • Ellen, Lauren, and Dave.

  • What they have in common is that they're awesome designers,

  • but they also are prepared to be sprint masters,

  • and they can take their team and make

  • them totally shocked in how much they can achieve together.

  • We found that by measuring the satisfaction of sprints

  • that had and didn't have trained sprint

  • masters that the second kind was better.

  • People are more satisfied with participating

  • in a sprint that's well crafted.

  • So the reason also that sprint masters matter

  • is that if you have a team that's only sprinters,

  • the most predictable outcome is that they end up

  • in different directions.

  • You need the sprint master in order

  • to create the sense of a common goal, of a shared

  • goal, and a shared dream, and let them run fast.

  • And the sprint master ensures that.

  • Designing the team is another and very interesting part

  • of it.

  • Now, you know from Jake that working with designers, PMs,

  • engineers, everyone is really crucial.

  • What happens if you're missing someone?

  • Say you need to add the researcher to your team

  • because you don't have one.

  • The sprint is an opportunity to redefine who is on your team.

  • You can invite the researcher from your larger organization,

  • or find someone from the industry.

  • No one wakes up hoping that they're

  • going to have a boring day in which they do not contribute

  • decidedly anything towards mankind.

  • So when you invite someone to a sprint

  • they have a chance to do something cool,

  • and generally people say yes.

  • I've been surprised on how many people I've been able to invite

  • and enrich the team.

  • Another hack is about accountability.

  • I put these brackets here because I

  • call these accountability brackets.

  • It's about starting and ending something.

  • Just like in software you don't start and forget

  • to end something because it doesn't compile if you don't

  • have the right braces, these accountability brackets

  • help remind us about what to do at the beginning

  • and at the end.

  • No matter what your design processes is

  • we recommend that you start and end with user research.

  • At the beginning you want to open the bracket

  • and talk to users, learn about their needs.

  • It is always amazing the sense of empathy and discovery

  • that you can get from that.

  • Like the time Daniel kind of got this shining light over him

  • because he observed what people are

  • like when they go to the store to buy coffee.

  • And you want to end with user research.

  • You just created something.

  • You finished, closed Photoshop, or you

  • closed your prototype and coding.

  • And now you can bring that to people and ask,

  • is that meeting your goals?

  • There's always interesting things to learn.

  • The other hack around accountability

  • is how to optimize the executive time.

  • Now, we saw that at Google Ventures

  • the executives are often a part of the entire experience.

  • What happens if your executives are not

  • available, or not available for the whole time?

  • You can invite people and your executives

  • to visit you at the beginning of the sprint.

  • You can interview them for about 20 minutes

  • and learn about their goals so that your team can

  • be aligned with where they want to go.

  • As a bonus, you can bring them in in the middle

  • to get a check in.

  • Are we going the right way?

  • And then afterwards you want to make sure

  • that resources are committed so that your sprint is going

  • and continuing way beyond the [INAUDIBLE]

  • that you created it for.

  • Now, if you're a designer it might

  • feel intimidating to go to an executive

  • and invite them to a sprint.

  • I understand.

  • But think about it from the executive's perspective.

  • They don't wake up in the morning

  • hoping to have a boring day.

  • By going to a sprint, even in 20 minutes,

  • they get a chance to participate in something

  • special, energizing, impactful.

  • So it might be worth it for them too.

  • So starting and ending with someone's time,

  • someone who'll be approving your work, is very important.

  • So with that we learned about stories and sprints

  • from Google X, across Google, and we learned some hacks.

  • That's great.

  • But something's missing here.

  • I promise.

  • There's something that you haven't heard yet.

  • You cannot learn about design by listening to me.

  • Talking and thinking about it is only so helpful.

  • I would like to invite you to some sprints.

  • 00:39:50,260 --> 00:39:51,930 I'm so glad you're excited.

  • Tomorrow at 9 o'clock there'll be a sprint with Glassware.

  • The Glass team is putting a sprint for you guys.

  • And at 11:00 the legendary team at Google Ventures

  • will be running a sprint for you guys as well.

  • These will not be five days experiences.

  • I promise.

  • AUDIENCE: Yay!

  • NADYA DIREKOVA: There'll be two hours in which you

  • have a chance to learn about the basics of the methodology

  • and to test and learn something quickly.

  • Later this summer we would like to welcome you

  • to additional sprints for Glassware Material Design that

  • got announced today, and for Android Wear.

  • You can sign up.

  • And if you're interested in this way of working,

  • let us know at this form.

  • designsprints with an S 2014.

  • Let us know and bring your team.

  • 00:40:41,470 --> 00:40:43,540 I want to leave you with this message.

  • Make great things.

  • And you might as well do it fast.

  • The world needs you.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • 00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:00,000 NADYA DIREKOVA: OK.

  • JAKE KNAPP: Do we have time for?

  • NADYA DIREKOVA: Let's check.

  • JAKE KNAPP: Oh, we do.

  • We have four minutes.

  • NADYA DIREKOVA: We have four minutes for your questions.

  • JAKE KNAPP: Fast questions.

  • NADYA DIREKOVA: Take it.

  • JAKE KNAPP: Right there.

  • Yeah.

  • First hand up.

  • NADYA DIREKOVA: There's two mics here and here.

  • So you can line up and give us your questions.

  • JAKE KNAPP: Oh sorry.

  • DANIEL BURKA: Or just yell it out, and I'll repeat it.

  • AUDIENCE: How do you go about selecting users for your user

  • testing at the end of the sprint?

  • JAKE KNAPP: Great question.

  • So how do we go about selecting users for our studies

  • at the end of the sprint?

  • The method that we use at Google Ventures

  • is actually mostly Craigslist.

  • We'll post an ad on Craigslist.

  • We'll get 200, 250 responses in a major city.

  • And what's really important is that we have a screener survey.

  • So we'll use a Google survey to ask

  • them to answer a bunch of questions that doesn't reveal

  • exactly what we're looking for, and then we

  • get a spreadsheet we can go through.

  • The way you structure that survey,

  • the way you write that ad is really important so that you

  • don't get, you know-- You want quality customers that

  • match exactly what you're looking for.

  • And there's some posts on there, if you follow that same link,

  • gv.com/designsprint, you can find your way to some posts

  • about how to do that.

  • For some customers, just to add one more thing,

  • if you need a certain kind of expert user

  • we'll usually rely on the company

  • to use their connections.

  • AUDIENCE: OK.

  • My question will be what are the general questions that you will

  • be asking the users on the interview session

  • after you have the prototype?

  • I mean, you must have a template questions

  • to facilitate your design to the users.

  • What are those templates and general questions?

  • Thanks.

  • JAKE KNAPP: The best source for those questions is also

  • gv.com/designsprint.

  • But to give you a little tantalizing

  • hints of what it's like the key is actually

  • to structure the interview guide right to the prototype.

  • So you want to get people reacting rather than giving you

  • feedback.

  • You want them to be moving through the prototype

  • as though it was real.

  • And the best way to do that is actually a little nuanced.

  • So I'll totally direct you to check out the blog posts

  • for all the detail about writing those questions.

  • AUDIENCE: Cool.

  • You guys spoke about two pretty different scenarios.

  • You spoke about sprinting as individuals,

  • whereas you talked about bigger groups

  • and sort of teams that sprint.

  • My question is when you have groups that sprint together,

  • do you interfere at all with the dynamics of that group?

  • Because sometimes you have, you know, really strong voices,

  • and really shy voices, and stuff like that.

  • Do you at all interfere with the dynamics of the group,

  • or do you just kind of let it happen?

  • NADYA DIREKOVA: The question is whether in large groups

  • trying to interfere or not?

  • That's the role of the sprint master.

  • I don't call it interference.

  • I call it leading.

  • JAKE KNAPP: We also want, when there's

  • a dynamic about how decisions are made in the company,

  • we want to understand it and expose it.

  • We want to ask them how it works,

  • and make sure that the way we make decisions

  • mirrors that so that we don't create

  • a false sense of collegiality.

  • DANIEL BURKA: A lot of the decision making stuff Jake

  • was showing with the stickers, you

  • know, we're not standing around arguing with each other,

  • because then the person with the loudest voice can win.

  • We're stopping, doing a lot of individual thinking,

  • and then voting individually.

  • So people are much more independent of each other,

  • and not susceptible to so much group think.

  • AUDIENCE: Hi.

  • What are some of your tips for enforcing deadlines

  • when you need to wait for significant data

  • to make intelligent iterations?

  • JAKE KNAPP: Well, I mean that's a pretty complex question.

  • I think that what significant data is defined as

  • is like-- I don't know what you mean.

  • We think that you can get really good data

  • from a lot of different ways.

  • And one of them is these kinds of user research.

  • There are other ways to get it fast.

  • And I understand sometimes there are certain kinds of decisions

  • that you can only get from a real world launch.

  • But our framework, our lens, is what

  • is the fastest way we can test this hypothesis that we have.

  • There's something we don't know, and how can we get to an answer

  • as quickly as possible?

  • We need to test it somehow.

  • And if we think of it as a prototype and a test

  • it opens up a new world of possibilities.

  • When you think the only way you can

  • get data is to launch and measure

  • a live product, or a fully functional live product,

  • it limits you.

  • So without detail it's hard for me

  • to not give that kind of hand wavy answer,

  • but I think the key for us is always

  • thinking what's the fastest way to answer the unknown.

  • NADYA DIREKOVA: We'll take one more question.

  • AUDIENCE: What tools or modifications

  • can you suggest for working with a distributed design team?

  • So if they can't physically be there to put stickies

  • do you have like tools they you use?

  • JAKE KNAPP: The best tool is a plane.

  • If you can just get them there that would work the best.

  • Nadya, do you have any experience

  • with this that's worked well?

  • NADYA DIREKOVA: You can do Hangouts.

  • I mean, it's best if you're together

  • because you really feel that bonding.

  • But you cam work in a virtual way using like virtual tools.

  • You just need to plan it, or think about it.

  • AUDIENCE: Thank you.

  • NADYA DIREKOVA: You're welcome.

  • JAKE KNAPP: Thanks you guys so much.

  • You can chalk us down.

  • Thanks a lot.

  • [APPLAUSE]

00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,510 JAKE KNAPP: Thank you guys for coming to our talk.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it