Out of Many, One
Out of Many, One
Everyone has ideas. Whenever a problem arises, people seem to instantly complain and give their perspectives on what should be, or should’ve been done. Whether it is a simple or complicated situation, everyone has their own thoughts and opinions.
But the difference between ideas and a solution is that a solution is an idea put into practice.
This week, my group tackled Phase 2 of our design sprint, where we did exactly that: decide what idea to turn into our solution. And instead of just collecting all our different thoughts and choosing one we thought is the best, we followed a step-by-step process to reach an effective idea to test.
Wait… How Did We Get Here?
This blog post is part of a series documenting my participation in a design sprint, a process created by Google Ventures. My group – consisting of myself, Taylor, and Drew – is tasked with creating a fintech product to teach personal finance to teenagers. We're exploring each phase of the process in a weekly meeting.
In the pre-sprint phase, our group came up with agreements and prepared for the task ahead. In Phase 1, we sketched ideas for a potential solution to test. We are now a Phase 2; the part of the process where we will narrow our solutions down to one to pursue.
Narrowing it Down
When it comes to voting in a design sprint, the focus is on making sure everyone’s voices are heard. According to an article on TXI Digital, “By not bogging things down with the traditional waterfall flow of ideas — high-level individuals create ideas and pass them to the rest of the organization — ideas can come from anywhere. Dot voting democratizes this ideation process.” Instead of an overly charming individual causing everyone to lean towards one idea, using structured dot voting ensures that all members give equal input.
We started our Phase 2 meeting by displaying our solution sketches from the previous phrase, in what is known as the art museum. In this activity, the mean members simply review the sketches for a couple of minutes. “The purpose is to review a wide range of ideas,” writes Pattie Belle Hastings in The Sprint Handbook, “and to start thinking about which concepts are the most promising.” Given that there are only three people in the group, including myself, this activity was fairly brief, but gave us all an opportunity to thoroughly examine our options.
Then, we turned the museum into a heat map by placing dots on concepts and elements of the sketches that we each individually liked. One of the most important rules of this activity is not to have any discussion. This is done in avoidance of groupthink or convincing speakers. “Explaining ideas has all kinds of downsides,” writes Jake Knapp in Sprint. “If someone makes a compelling case for his or her idea or is a bit more charismatic, your opinion will be skewed.”
In looking at the Miro board after the dots had been placed, it became apparent that some ideas were more popular than others. We then proceeded to conduct some speed critiques. According to an article by Nathalie Baudrand on the OmbuLabs Blog, “In this activity, we are basically just seeing what we like about each sketch.” As we each took turns discussing our thoughts during the speed critique, notes were jotted down onto sticky notes and placed next to their concept.
The next two steps – the straw poll and supervote – would make the final determination as to where our team stood. For the straw poll activity, all three group members took three dots each, to place on their favorite concepts. Although this was similar to the heat map voting, the limit meant that you could only select the concepts you unequivocally liked. We spent our time wisely, taking about 4 minutes until all the dots had been casted.
A screenshot taken of our Miro board during the straw poll activity
For the supervote, we appointed one of our members, Drew, as our decider. This step represents the end of the voting process, as “The Super Vote is the final decision-making process that involves only the Decider in the Sprint,” writes Hastings in The Sprint Handbook. Drew was to place two dots (conveniently labeled with a star) and vote on the one solution to spend our time testing, as well as one concept from any of the sketches to use. With the power resting in his hands, Drew chose my solution sketch, alongside a concept he had created and coined as the “investing mountain.”
Where Do We Go From Here?
The winning solution sketch had been decided. A concept to include was also chosen. What’s next?
In ten minutes, each member created a user flow outlining the goal in using the app, the beginning of how the user came to use the app, and all the steps in between. The catch, however, is that only six steps could be outlined. This forced us to only choose the steps we thought were the most important. In the end, we had three potential user flows showcasing the steps where the user should go.
Then, it came time to vote once again. While Taylor and I received one dot each, Drew was given two dots as the decider. Echoing the supervote, Drew chose one user flow and one step to include in the storyboard. Drew placed his dots – which in Miro were actually shaped as stars – on Taylor’s user flow and my last step.
Our user flows after voting.
Making It Visual
For the last step of phase 2, the three of us created an 8-step storyboard together based on the steps outlined in the chosen user flow. Since we were making this storyboard fairly quickly, I used Adobe Illustrator to generate some graphics to use with the Adobe Firefly integration. I found this to be an instance where AI image generation is helpful. We didn’t need anything overly specific, but just a representation of what we wanted.
A screenshot of our storyboard. Images such as the avatar, city, check, and coin were AI generated using Adobe Firefly.
What’s Next?
This phase gave us the opportunity to choose the idea that we will test. The best part? We avoided groupthink while doing so. In completing a series of voting activities, we narrowed down what we each individually liked, and in doing so, were able to choose the final idea.
In phase 3, our group will begin to prototype this idea. I’m really excited to get the full prototype up and running, and see how the decision we made during this phase plays out!
I’m Sean Formantes, a graphic designer and content creator for social media. I am a lover of music, art, and coffee.