My last blog post should have kicked some of you off your backside to get stuff done… I know I know, advice is cheap and it is even cheaper for me to “share my wisdom”, like no-one knew that Time was the most valuable resource we have. Anyways, I wanted to follow up on that post by actually pointing out how you can do rapid prototyping and Design Thinking.
I saw the presentation below in the Grow conference in Vancouver last year, but it was not this long (45 min, believe me it is worth it) or detailed. Thanks for youtube and the Google Ventures team for sharing their secret sauce of doing rapid prototyping through what they call Design Sprints, i.e getting to a validated design in 5 days. Impossible? well, watch the video and see how they do it. Lots of nuances that get missed if not pointed out, notice that they build multiple prototypes and pick one based on customer validation. Notice also that they don’t get bogged down with technology or mechanics of building something, they use intuitive tools that capture the essence of what needs to be validated. Last but not least, this methodology works for Mobile, Tablet, Website or even physical products, so it is a design thinking on everything. I wrote about why I believe the real value in any company is in the Data, Design and Network that it is built on. Here is the essence of Design and how you can incorporate that into your team.
Have you implemented something like this in your team? No? why not? launching products is a difficult task and launching often is even more difficult but if you incorporate clever work methods and tools and build a culture that embraces things like this you can effectively build great products and services. So what are you waiting for? Go build something cool and solve problems and get paid for doing it well.
