Deciders have a busy agenda, jump from meeting to meeting and are forced to multitask. Even if you are the one preparing the Sprint, the first reaction you will hear is “I do not have time”.
In many cases, Deciders lose sight of their field of expertise and no longer work with their teams directly. Although they have many ideas and excellent visions, they often have to delegate the execution to managers. A Design Sprint is the ideal solution for leaders to reconnect with their teams or to roll up their sleeves and meet the challenges of their businesses – as long as they take the necessary time for it.
Here are some tips on how to convince Deciders to try the Design Sprint:
- Talk about the opportunity cost: why spend months of meetings picking up the pieces every time when they could spend 3 productive days with their team?
- Mention previous projects on which you have lost valuable time on unnecessary back and forth.
- Highlight that the Design Sprint has become the tool of choice to find answers to big questions among the most innovative and competitive companies at the moment (Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber, BBC).
- Present this as a change to the management experience. Try to work differently for a couple of days to get a fresh perspective.
- Propose a good Sprint Goal: if the starting problem is important enough, you will have no problem getting your team together.