Design Sprint Map Exercise for Non-Existing/New Products

Mar '23 (edited) in Workshops & Exercises 🍔

This post is inspired by one of the previous questions in the group (can't remember the person's name atm, will edit later).

It's a common Design Sprint myth that design sprint isn't very useful for new products but works only for the products that need refinement. While it's understandable for this to be a common standpoint, there are very solid arguments why that's not the case and I'll lay out just a few of them.

It's ok not to have a specific product and it's ok to assume things in the Design Sprint. The Design Sprint is here to help us "solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days" (or four days in the case of DS 2.0). So, DS is here to make assumptions, and to test if the idea works in the real world. You can deal with specifics in the later stages of product development. There will probably be the whole UX process for defining specifics, where you can use user interviews, user journey mapping, discovery workshops, etc. Also, remember the hotel robot from the Sprint book.

That being said, if you're doing Design Sprint for a new thing, a thorough expert interview should help. Having a UX designer or researcher on the team helps because they usually know general research, the basics of psychology, and behavioral patterns. Together with the team, you'll be able to define and assume what a good customer journey will be and test it out on the testing day or later as a follow-up to the Sprint. Test ideas freely, and don't be afraid to fail!

Feel free to add to this and describe your experiences!

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