Project Management: ‘Journey to the End of the Sprint’
A Design Sprint Experience
July 2023
Role: Project Manager, Team Member
Team Snap: Kelly Corder, Alexis Faire, Molly Linder, Jillian Petro, Yazmeen Renova, Rachel Robbins, and Adam Traina
Initially, I knew a project manager was in charge of overseeing a project’s status from beginning to end. That person had to communicate with the team, make decisions, and make sure goals are met in a timely manner.
However, I was not aware of the many different methods that can be used during a project. Sprint is part of the Scrum methodology within project management practice. It is a timed period when a team breaks a project into chunks to help produce higher quality work. It allows for specific deadlines to be met and highlights brainstorming activities.
Project Overview
From mid-June 2023 to early July 2023, I was one of seven team members (Team Snap) chosen to work on a Sprint project. After establishing a problem, we spent four weeks working to create a solution.
Problem
Within the last 15 years, streaming has become one of the most popular forms of content intake for users. From music and videos to TV and movies, users have shied away from what was once considered traditional forms of media.
As a team, we thought it would be interesting to find a way to track what a user streams from various platforms, write reviews, share with other users, and have personal content suggestions all within one app. Was this idea achievable?
Solution
After identifying our problem, we began our Sprint journey to find a solution.
Monday
The “Monday” portion occurred during the first week of our Sprint journey. It had the most activities and was the starting point for our project.
As a team, we voted for a Decider (Jillian Petro) who was responsible for making any final decisions throughout the process. We also voted for a Facilitator (Molly Linder) who was responsible for making sure the tasks are completed in a timely manner and spearheading voting sessions.
Monday tasks:
– Develop longterm goals and vote
– Provide Sprint questions that share the biggest challenges and vote
– Identify and interview a series of experts
– Provide interview questions in the form of “How might we…” and vote
– Decide the target customer, event, and sprint questions
After completing these tasks, we decided to develop an app service that can link to several streaming platforms where customers can receive recommendations for specific services.
Our target customer was a 20-year-old grandchild who is a consistent user of the service. When the grandchild’s grandfather starts using streaming platforms, he struggles to find and remember the recommendations his grandchild gives him. The grandchild then introduces the grandfather to Team Snap’s app service.
Tuesday
During the second week of our Sprint journey, we covered the “Tuesday” portion. This was the beginning of the ideation period.
Tuesday tasks:
– Lightning Demos
– The Four Step Sketch
– Solution Sketches
Lightning Demos
Each team member gathered inspiration from products or services we thought could help brainstorm concepts for our project. With three inspired ideas per person, we then discussed why we chose those ideas and how we could incorporate it into the design for our service.
The Four Step Sketch
The purpose of this solo activity was to write down any thoughts and ideas about our initial problem. We provided a combination of written word and visual components all on one sheet of paper. This was not shared with the other members of the group but more as practice for the Solution Sketches exercise.
Solution Sketches
For this exercise, we were all responsible for coming up with a solution for our problem. Within three panels, we sketched a self-explanatory solution for what a user may see or experience when using our service. We included notes for context and a title, but we could not place our names on our sketches, as it was important to remain anonymous for the Sprint day. We all then submitted a clear photo to our Facilitator.
Wednesday
The “Wednesday” tasks prepared us for our prototype phase of the journey. Our Facilitator (Molly Linder) anonymously posted each solution sketch to our Sprint board. We then each voted for elements of each sketch that we liked. The most popular elements received a selection from our Decider. Some popular elements included a View Tracker, Review page, and Linked Accounts page.
After selection, we created a storyboard for our prototype and assigned individual tasks.
Thursday
“Thursday’s” tasks fell in the same week as “Wednesday” as we began developing our prototype. We unanimously agreed on “Bingeworthy” to be the product’s name and created a logo and color palette.
Friday
The final tasks for “Friday” and week of our Sprint journey consisted of customer interviews, testing our prototype, and wrapping up our Sprint.
While we had more positive and neutral reactions, there were a few negative reactions that simply urged for improvements in certain areas of our prototype. However, the overall consensus was that it is an interesting product that they would use.
Overall, as a team, we believed that if we had more time and resources, we could make improvements to this concept and potentially make it real.
Prototype
Results
After spending a month experiencing a Sprint journey, I found it to be an interesting take on brainstorming and implementing ideas to provide a solution for a problem.
Final Deliverables
Sprint Journey: https://tinyurl.com/bingeworthyprototype
Prototype: https://tinyurl.com/ndfy7k9x
Presentation: https://tinyurl.com/nhdtfzer
Presentation Slides: https://tinyurl.com/bingeworthyproject