You must be wondering what is a design sprint. Well, guess what… I as well did not know what a design sprint at all. But before I begin, let me start from the beginning.

On the 22nd of September during my lunch break, I started to search for a networking event that I would like to go. During my search, I found only one event that was about five blocks away from my internship which was great. It started around 7 pm in a very tall building. I went up the 10-floor turn left and talk all the way down to the last door. And there I was. It was in a small conference room with tables have promotional items on them. The company that was promoting the event was called Start Up Institute.

Start Up Institute is a small school where someone can sign up to learn about web development, web design, digital marketing, or sales and account management. What great about this school is that it is small where everyone gets to know everyone. What not so great is the tuition. Let’s just say it is very pricey. But anyway, overall it seems like a nice school.

Start Up gave out a bag with information about the institute with a pen. Yay!

Before I enter into the room, someone asks for your name and let you know that there were refreshments in the back if you want something to drink. After that, I went to sit down and I saw a little gift on the table, I was excited. I love FREE things. Who doesn’t love free things?

In five minutes, they started the presentation on what a design sprint is. The one who is giving the presentation is named Jay Melone who is the chief executive officer of a small agency New Haircut.  He explains that a design sprint is a five-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers. That the answer in a nutshell. The long answer is that its starts with brainstorming to solve the big challenge, then sketches how you solve the big challenge after that deciding which solutions is best to solve the big challenge. On Thursday, you make the prototype base on the solution you decided and then final you test the prototype with customers that would use the product.

In the process of Jay explaining this process, we did couple of activities. One of them does come up six different solutions for an app called gifty. To be honest, this part was hard for me because I usually research first about my target audience and what they would like etc. But to think right there on the spot six different designs was very hard. But somehow my artwork ends up on the wall.

My artwork is in the second row; in the middle

I was surprised. I learn to never doubt yourself and give yourself a chance. In the picture above, you see green and orange dots. Well, a group of people voluntary to do the deciding part (the other activities of the presentation) and choose which artwork best solve the big challenge which here is to create an app that will help you pick the best gift for your love ones. My artwork was chosen with two more artwork. Again never doubt yourself.

Jay M. presenting what a design sprint is.

In this event, I have learned many things but one for sure is to give yourself a chance.
Also that I need to go to more of these events like this one. I was always nervous to go to a networking event because I am a very shy person who stumbles on their words a lot. But after this event, I believe I can step out of my box even more and meet new people.