(From two posts on uie.com, link for Part 1 here)
The ACT, Inc standardized testing company hired Richard Canfield and Freshly Tilled Soil to help them innovate on their products in a risk-averse, consensus-driven culture
Consensus and democratic vote aren’t the same thing. As Richard said,
“The funny thing is consensus doesn’t improve the quality of the decisions. It allows you to improve the quality of the inputs but not the outputs. We are good at asking for opinions to the point where it stymies our ability to make decisions.”
ACT and FTS together decided on a “see one, do one, teach one” design sprint approach:
“When you try and that failure is rewarded in the design sprint process, you start to realize, ‘oh, actually making mistakes or choosing things that aren’t ultimately going to be part of the finished product, that’s okay.’ That’s part of how we do creativity. We need to make things that aren’t fantastically brilliant out of the gate, so that we can find out what things will stick and what things will not stick”
They made sure to include all areas of the business, plus outside voices such as students
For their sprints, they decided not to use the “decider”
Instead they dot voted using a $100 Test approach
- This democratic process gave everyone an equal voice in the process—key for this org’s culture
(When dealing with qualitative data, a decider may be necessary since they have domain knowledge and can help prioritize possible solutions)
By running quick 3-day sprints, ideas were able to succeed or fail without large risk, and more peoples’ ideas got into the mix—esp folks who aren’t usually involved in ideation
But sprint leaders must be sure to design a sprint process that fits their culture—and explicitly communicate the process before embarking on the first sprint to get buy-in, esp from leadership
(This summarized only key parts of the article; use the link up top to read the entire thing!)
About Kathleen (from uie.com): Kathleen Barrett writes for UIE about design, design strategy, and design methods. Her 15 years of solving problems, developing content, and managing products has helped her gain a solid perspective on what works and what doesn’t for today’s designers.
