Product Management: Design Sprint

Question 1

6 Stages of the Desing Sprint

Answer 1

1. Understand
   Create a shared understanding of the problem space, the user, the competition, and why it all matters. Align as a team on a focus moving forward for the rest of the sprint
2. Define
   Start by focusing on where you want to end. By setting goals you can work backward to understand what needs to happen in order to get there.
3. Sketch
   Ideate. Start diverging and exploring lots of different solutions.
4. Decide
   Bring it all back together and decide on one idea to take through prototyping and validation
5. Prototype
   Map out and build a prototype of your idea
6. Validate
   Check to make sure that your idea is solving a real user need… and that it can be built!

Question 2

Challenge Statement

Answer 2

[ACTION] + [OUTPUT] + FOR [USER] + TO [PROBLEM] + BY [TIMEFRAME]

Question 3

UNDERSTAND: 3 common methods used to create a shared understanding and 3 common methods used for recording

Answer 3

Creating Shared understanding

1. Lightning talks
2. Interviews
3. Competitive Analysis

Recording Understanding

1. HMW
2. Affinity Maps
3. Rose, buds, thorns

Question 4

Lightning Talk

Answer 4

A lightning talk is a short presentation, usually about 20 minutes, focused on a specific topic.

common topics include:

user-research: what do we know about the users, their goals, and problems

Business: Why does this problem matter to our company

Technology: What current capabilities do we have?

Question 5

Interviews

Answer 5

Interviews
Interviews allow you to gain perspectives from a number of different vantage points. There are lots of types of interviews you can set up including:

User interviews

Build empathy for users
Get a deeper understanding of user needs and pain points

Stakeholder interviews

Dive deeper into some of the reasoning, rationale, and context of why this specific problem is important to solve. Topics can include any previous efforts to solve this or a similar problem

Expert interviews

Provide specialized insights around a specific problem, population, or technology

Question 6

Competitive Analysis

Answer 6

Competitive Analysis

Get a better understanding of the competition and other solutions that exist in the problem space by:

Doing research, including checking out websites and press materials

Reading reviews

Using the product and recording your experience

Question 7

DEFINE: 3 common methods used to create focus

Answer 7

1. Success Metrics and Signals
2. Design principles
3. Future Press Release

Question 8

Future Press Release

Answer 8

1. Write a press release for the product which includes elements of the following components

Name of the product (although this doesn’t have to be final and can change)
Who is the target user?
What problem does your product solve?
How does your product solve this problem?
Why your team built this
Why should users care?
How do users react to your product?
What sets this product apart from others?
How can users get the product?

2. Write a future Tweet for a future press release?
3. Write a newspaper headline for a future press release?

Question 9

DECIDE: 3 Common methods used to decide on ideas

Answer 9

1 Assumptions & Questions
2. Decision Matrix
3 Thinking hats

Question 10

6 Thinking hats

Answer 10

Blue hat - process (align on goals and order of hats)
White hat - data
Green hat - creativity
Yellow hat - benefits
Black hat - judgment
Red hat - intuition
Blue hat - process (summary of discussion)

Question 11

PROTOTYPE: Storyboarding

Answer 11

Storyboard maps out the problem facing your user and the journey they go through with your product to solve it
A storyboard is composed of frames that depict events along the user journey
Each frame should have a caption that explains what is happening and why
The first frame should explain how the user found themselves in this scenario and what is the problem they are trying to solve
The storyboard will become the blueprint for the prototype

Question 12

Things to consider when planning a user study

Answer 12

Who is your target user?
How many interviews will you have?
What do you want to find out?
Background information about the user
Specific questions around your idea
Tasks to complete with a prototype
How much time you will need to complete each interview

Question 13

General flow of a user study

Answer 13

1. Overview/Background
2. Signing the NDA
3. General Questions About User
4. Specific Questions About the product
5. Specific Tasks
6. User Feedback
7. Thank you Message

Question 14

What are P features?

Answer 14

P0 a launch blocking feature. The product will not launch without it
P1 a nice to have feature at launch, but not required. If not present at launch it should be a fast follow
P2 a desirable feature
P3, P4 unlikely to be built

Question 15

PRD

Answer 15

Product Requirements Doc that specifies why we’re building a product, how the product will work, and how the product’s success will be measured.

Question 16

Evangelize

Answer 16

to get people excited and bought into the project

Question 17

What minimum information should the PRD contain?

Answer 17

Background
Problem
Goals
Success metrics
Features

For each feature, you’ll want to include a priority level:

P0 = launch blocker. Product will not launch without this feature
P1 = desirable for launch, but not required. Fast follow after launch
P2 = nice to have
P3, P4 = unlikely to get built