5-Day Co-Design Sprint
Originally inspired by the Google Ventures Design Sprint, Apolinar has adapted and perfected this methodology for use in HX.
What is Co-Design?
Co-Design is an intensive, collaborative five-day sprint that actively involves all key stakeholders in the design process to make sure the final result meets their needs. We use Design Thinking and HX for problem-solving, resulting in a properly conceived test-ready prototype.
Cross-team collaboration
Frequently, organisations don’t have a shared understanding of what ‘done’ looks like - from stakeholders to decision-makers, to customer leads, to designers and developers - they all have a different interpretation of what ‘done’ is, and how the end goal or product should look and work.
Co-Design is a design approach that actively involves all stakeholders in the design process, from both the business and the customer. It leverages Design Thinking for problem-solving - instead of jumping straight to a solution - and helps organisations achieve greater collaboration and greater results, fast.
Savings in opportunity cost
How many projects have been delivered on time and on budget? Going over project timelines and budgets is way more common than it should be - to the point where delivering on time and on budget is often considered a cost-saving.
Doing it right the first time saves money. This can only be achieved with speed in delivery, a low rate of rework, and stakeholder alignment - which is all achieved through Apolinar’s 5-Day Co-Design Sprint.
How it works
Day 01
Understand
We kick off the sprint by getting a shared understanding of the key problems we need to solve, and opportunities we need to address with this project.
Day 02
Sketch
Together, we rapidly develop as many different solutions to the problem as possible. Everyone works separately to ensure maximum detail and depth with minimum groupthink.
Day 03
Decide
Time to narrow down multiple solutions and decide which ones, or amalgams of several, are going to be prototyped and tested.
Day 04
Prototype
Taking all the decisions made from Day 3, the design team will rapidly build an interactive and high-fidelity prototype in just seven hours.
Day 05
Test
We show the prototype to outside customers in one-on-one interviews, observing, recording, and finding patterns in real time. From here, feedback is gathered and improvements are iterated.
Why it matters
Early and effective stakeholder engagement.
Dialogue and shared problem-solving.
Validation of the design ideas from real end-users ensures a fresh, unbiased perspective.
The benefits of a multidisciplinary team.
A prototype that can be used to refine the planning and build support internally.
What you get
Hi-fidelity prototype
Ready to pass to your development team or show your stakeholders
Summary & Analysis Deck
Armed with key findings, stats, observations, insights and recommendations about what users like and don’t like about your digital product, you’re ready for the next iteration of the design.
Clear direction and alignment
Gain momentum and move from a design sprint to MVP
“The thing that really stand out the most is the design workshop and customer interview. The deep understanding Apolinar have on the project and what is needed, to help us prioritise the feature set.”
Tommy Liu | General Manager Commercial & IS, Open Country Dairy
FAQ
To get maximum value out of the workshop and align a shared organisational vision, all key stakeholders are expected to attend. However we understand that by nature this can’t always be possible, so we expect a rep to be available who has the power to make decisions on behalf of the stakeholder.
Prior to the sprint, we can help figure out who should be part of the core team. This way we keep the core sprint team small and nimble while also including anybody who needs or wants to be included.
We end the sprint by giving you all the material produced, the hi-fidelity prototype, findings from the user testing sessions and recommended next steps to the HX and design.
Depending on the scope of work, Apolinar will often work alongside you to move into a detailed design phase, where we improve the prototype, create the foundation design system, digital style guide and creative content assets.
Remote collaboration offers flexibility where key stakeholders can't physically attend meetings.
We have run remote Co-Design Sprints effectively, and this can be achieved through having the right tools for video, discussions, a virtual whiteboard, and a carefully managed sprint schedule.