Design Sprint Workshop 2019

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DifferenceMaker hosted a Google Design Sprint in August with current and past DifferenceMaker students and teams, as well as UMass Lowell student researchers. The Sprint consisted of four sessions with the goal of teaching student teams how to build and test their prototypes in just five days. DifferenceMaker judge and mentor, Richard Juknavorian ’98, Zuckerburg College of Health Sciences, led all the sessions. Each session consisted of videos, lectures, and teamwork.

DifferenceMaker judge and mentor, Richard Juknavorian ’98, Zuckerburg College of Health Sciences, introduces the five-step Design Sprint process

These sessions were based off the book Sprint, Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days, written by Jake Knapp from Google Ventures. The purpose of a Sprint is to be as efficient as possible with your time and to get everyone on the team to bring out their best ideas and contributions.

A Design Sprint is meant to Map, Sketch, Decide, Prototype, and Test ideas in just five days. It allows you to fast forward into the future so you can see how customers react before you invest all the time and expense of building a real product.

Sprint, the book that the sessions were based on.

Each day of the workshop had a different focus. For example, the first day focused on mapping the foundation for the product the team will be building. Each day led up to the last day of the workshop where the team was able to test their prototype on potential customers for feedback.

Team member interviewing a potential customer while the rest of the team takes down notes about the feedback they are receiving.

We would like to give a huge thank you to Richard Juknavorian for facilitating all of the sessions! The Design Sprint was an amazing learning experience for everyone.