The Top 5 Mistakes to Avoid During a Design Sprint
Tags: Design, Sprint Stories, Design Sprint, Product Development, Lesson

1. When the Decider is making a obviously bad decision

What this looks like

😱 The Decider makes a decision, and your first thought is “NOOOOOOOOO”.

As new facilitators, we were inclined to act like product strategists or senior designers — being persuasive and calling the shots on what decisions to take. But after a lot of Design Sprints, we’ve learned that it’s important for a facilitator to stay as neutral as possible.

But what if the Decider is making a bad decision? How can you keep the sprint on track without losing your neutrality?

Why it happens

😳 The Decider isn’t an expert in Design Sprints.

While the Decider is definitely an expert in their company and field, they probably aren’t an expert in running a successful Design Sprint. In fact, this is probably their first sprint.

Their first decision in the sprint won’t always be the right one. Your role as the facilitator is to help them fix this.

How to prevent it

⁉️ Targeted questions are the key to staying neutral while keeping the sprint on track.

Open-ended but pointed questions can help remind the Decider about the sprint’s purpose and goals. This will often help them get to an “aha!” moment, realise they’re headed in the wrong direction, and make the right decision.

For example, say that the goal of a Design Sprint is to improve user retention. When the Decider is picking their focus area on the map, choosing onboarding would be an obviously bad decision, since user retention is all about daily use. In this case, you could ask questions like “What is the problem we’re addressing in this sprint? Aren’t we focused on improving user retention? Which area will help us solve that?”

Sometimes the Decider can be stubborn about their decision, despite your pointed questions. That’s when you need to temporarily set aside neutrality and don your consultant hat. Take the Decider aside for a private conversation and explain how their decision will hinder the Design Sprint.

2. You are focused more on your contribution than facilitation

What this looks like

🤘 You’re more excited to share your ideas than facilitate the sessions.

As a facilitator, it’s natural to care about the outcome of each exercise. But it’s a problem if you focus more on your contribution to the outcome, rather than on the exercise itself. Your job as a facilitator is to help everyone do their best, not to do your best.

Why it happens

😎 You’re an experienced product person who has lots of great ideas.

When we started facilitating Design Sprints, we had all sorts of amazing ideas for the products we were working on. Our first thought was often, this idea needs to be on the table.

This mindset is completely natural. For experienced product designers or people who are used to contributing to product strategy, it’s second nature to want to reframe problems, imagine new solutions and create beautiful sketches. However, breaking through this mindset is one of the biggest achievements for a facilitator.

How to prevent it

🙌 Set aside your ego and focus on helping other people do their best.

Why can’t you both facilitate and contribute ideas? Let’s take the sketching process as an example. Sketching is the heart of a Design Sprint, but if a facilitator focuses on making their own sketch great, they’ll have less time and attention for helping other participants. In the end, you may have one great sketch, but you’ll have compromised everyone else’s excitement and ideas.

When we stopped focusing on our ideas and refocused our efforts on facilitation, the output for our Design Sprints skyrocketed. Enthusiasm and energy soared, and people started coming up with sketches that put our designers to shame. At the same time, our energy went farther and we could enjoy sprints more.

When you’re facilitating a sprint, make sure to stay single-mindedly focused on helping the team feel comfortable and bringing them into a creative zone. Think, how can I help everyone do their best? How can I encourage people to contribute more? How can I show good and bad examples for each session? That’s worth far more than any ideas you might bring to the table.

3. Someone questions whether the sprint is even necessary

What this looks like

😒 Someone who’s agreed to do the sprint doesn’t actually believe in it.

As sprint facilitators, we’ve seen this happen a lot. You start the sprint, give an overview of the process, and a half hour later, someone halts the conversation to ask, “Why are we even doing this?”

A Design Sprint is about testing big ideas to help a product make a big leap, rather than incremental changes. However, there’s always going to be someone who thinks it’s more important to solve for a product’s immediate priorities, rather than thinking about where it will go one year down the line; or someone who wants to focus on fixing bugs, rather than imagining new features.

Why it happens

😓 Bosses like to see change now, not next year.

This short-term focus is especially common when someone is under a lot of pressure to fix immediate issues — for example, a product manager who’s trying to move a metric by next month, an engineer who has to clear a backlog, or a marketer who knows that changing just one part of a product can improve the sales funnel.

How to prevent it

🎤 Talk one-on-one with each stakeholder before the sprint.

🚀 Set the right expectations: a sprint is for long-term goals.

Before you even start, it’s critical to make sure that everyone agrees on the purpose and expected outcomes of the Design Sprint. If key stakeholders don’t buy into the sprint, it will start on a terrible note and likely won’t turn out well.

To solve this, we often have a short, one-to-one conversation with each important stakeholder before the sprint starts. We give background on why sprints are a powerful process, explain how that person’s contribution is important, and address their concerns or fears about a sprint. It just takes 20 minutes, but these short conversations are invaluable for making each person feel heard and getting them pumped for the sprint.

4. There is a troublemaker in the room who won’t contribute

What this looks like

🙅‍♂️ Someone is disagreeing with everything, just for the sake of it.

Sometimes you’ll end up with someone who likes to find fault in everything, no matter what you do or say. This can be super frustrating — not just for you, the facilitator, but also for everyone else in the sprint. A troublemaker in the mix will often derail the sprint and waste everyone’s time.

Why it happens

😈 Some people, especially important ones, like playing devil’s advocate.

In every company, there are people who love playing devil’s advocate. It’s just inevitable. And, given their love for debate, it’s equally inevitable that they’ll end up in a sprint group.

The simple solution — kick them out! If only… Usually you can’t kick out a troublemaker. They may have important perspectives, or they may even be a senior stakeholder whose sign-off is important for moving forward. However, you can’t let them stall or derail the entire sprint.

How to prevent it

⁉️ Identify potential troublemakers before the sprint.

💭 Share expectations at the very beginning of the sprint.

🚘 Park distracting questions or ideas from the troublemaker.

It’s possible to neutralise a troublemaker and keep a Design Sprint on track. Here are the three things we do:

Talk to the troublemaker before the sprint. Once you know who’s participating in a sprint, make sure you speak to key stakeholders and any potential troublemakers. Can you make them feel heard and defuse their concerns? Even if you can’t, just identifying a potential troublemaker is good. It will keep you from being surprised during the sprint.

Once you know who’s participating in a sprint, make sure you speak to key stakeholders and any potential troublemakers. Can you make them feel heard and defuse their concerns? Even if you can’t, just identifying a potential troublemaker is good. It will keep you from being surprised during the sprint. Look for alignment at the very beginning. Before the sprint even starts, take 10–15 minutes to have everyone write down and share their expectations for the sprint. As well as helping you correct any misconceptions, this short conversation can help everyone feel like they’re being heard. A bit of early attention can help turn a troublemaker into someone whose concerns were resolved and wants to productively contribute.

Before the sprint even starts, take 10–15 minutes to have everyone write down and share their expectations for the sprint. As well as helping you correct any misconceptions, this short conversation can help everyone feel like they’re being heard. A bit of early attention can help turn a troublemaker into someone whose concerns were resolved and wants to productively contribute. Park distracting concerns and ideas. Still dealing with a troublemaker, despite early conversations? When they ask a distracting question, dismissing it can just lead to more trouble. Instead, use the Parking Lot method to let a troublemaker voice their questions without distracting the sprint.

5. Users don’t show up on the testing day

What this looks like

😑 Users skip their scheduled tests without any warning.

After going 4 days of sprint sessions, booking testers and creating a great prototype, it’s time for user testing. But what happens if some of your user testers don’t show up?

Why it happens

🏃‍♂️ People have busy lives, or the tests have weak incentives.

One reason that people skip user tests is that the incentive for doing them wasn’t strong enough. This can happen when you recruit friends and ask them to give up an hour of their time out of kindness.

Another reason is that most people are busy and have a lot of things going on. User tests can feel like something that they can skip without consequences if other priorities pop up.

How to prevent it

💸 Offer a great incentive to make user tests worthwhile.

🤞 Book two extra testers for just in case.

First, make sure your user tests have an appealing incentive. For example, we give user testers a $50 Amazon voucher for participating. This incentive can be different, based on who you’re interviewing, and it can be something other than money. Just make sure that your incentive is something that people actually want.

Second, book two extra user testers in case some people bail despite your awesome incentive. If you get any no-shows, you’ll still be covered. If no one skips their user test, you can either cancel your extra testers or interview them for bonus insights.