Design Sprints are the Big Macs of innovation

I enjoy visiting McDonald’s with my family every now and then. It makes everybody happy. I tend to eat more veggie McChickens lately, but once in a while I want a classic Big Mac. I mean, who doesn’t like a Big Mac?

Design Sprints are like Big Macs. They’re fast. They offer instant gratification. They fill your appetite. And everybody seems to like them.

But to think you can do innovation, digital transformation and UX design simply by doing a lot of design sprints, is like thinking you can have a healthy diet by eating Big Macs every day. (I don’t have to tell you that’s not a great idea, we’ve all seen Supersize Me, right?)

Yet many teams and companies believe design sprints are all they need.

“We want to innovate! Let’s do a one week sprint.”

“We don’t have money to hire a designer full time. Let’s do a design sprint and then the developers can immediately start building.”

“We don’t need more research, we did a user test on Day 5, our concept was validated.”

This is of course foolish. It doesn’t work like that. Doing innovation and design the right way is like having a healthy, balanced diet. It’s something you do every day. You make sure you eat your veggies, do your own cooking, get enough fibers and all that.

Does that mean design sprints are bad? No. Just like Big Macs are not bad, if you know why you’re having one. The good thing about design sprints is that they are very accessible. Just invite your stakeholders, clear their agendas, follow the steps and everyone gets exposed to the power of collaborative creativity and user testing, in a short amount of time. That’s also why we like fast food: it’s simple, fast and easy.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a design sprint every now and then. Enjoy it. Have fun together! Just make sure that the week after, you return to your regular diet. Real change happens in your own kitchen, not in a drive-through.