Design Thinking Toolkit
Design Thinking Toolkit
4-Step Concept Sketch

4-Step Concept Sketch

Recipe step number
Day 2, Activity 3
Description
Sketch clear recommendations for solutions
Reading Time
5 mins
Activity time
20 mins - 1 hr

Recipe: Design Sprint (Day 2)

  1. Lightning Demos
  2. Divide or Swarm
  3. 4-Step Sketch

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Materials - Access to Mural (digital whiteboard) - Microsoft Teams (for group video calls)

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Related Mural templates: Design Sprint complete 5-day canvas

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More resources - links etc go here

Overview

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Why do this activity? This allows every expert in the Sprint to have a voice and recommendation for the solution. It’s a chance for individuals to pull together all of the great knowledge, inspiration, and focal points into something a key stakeholder or customer could experience

Here's a video from Design Sprint agency AJ&Smart that shows the complete process of the 4-Step Sketch.

Key Tips

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Tips from the Sprint Book - pages 103-118
  • Step 1 – Take Notes - independently while reviewing the gallery. Just note important things that could lead to great ideas, or be important for idea generation. What inspires you.
  • Step 2 – Early Ideas – independently start pulling some of the inspirational notes together into early ideas or maybe even doodles. Start formulating, but don’t worry about a “baked” idea yet
  • Step 3 – “Crazy 8s” – In 8 mins, generate 8 wildly different ideas. Be crazy, it’s about exploring.
  • Step 4 – Solution Sketch - This is the one the team will see. This will convey an experience (3 panels for a beginning, middle, and end). It should describe the details and show important features that could go into the prototype. Utilize text, doodles, lines, arrows, and icons. Have a title, but DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.
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Key tips & learnings from Advance Concepts™
  • It’s important to let the team know the steps that are independent (and take the pressure off them!)
  • Remind them to LEVERAGE THE LIGHTNING DEMOS – taking specific pieces of content.
  • Finally, for the Solution Sketch (step 4) – we have visuals to refer to that will remind the team about what makes a good Solution Sketch (e.g. it speaks for itself, it’s visual, it’s an experience, etc)
  • NOTE FOR VIRTUAL SPRINT: Typically the Advance Concepts™ team will do something slightly different when working virtual. We “Connect Ideas” (heat map related worlds) and then step 2 is “Remix Sketching”. It’s a way to make the 4 Step Sketch simpler, faster, and more effective virtually.

How to do this activity

(Watch the video above for more information about the activity)

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  1. Take Notes
    • Independently while reviewing the Lightning Demos.
    • Just note important things that could lead to great ideas, or be important for idea generation. Whatever inspires you.
  2. Early Ideas
    • Independently start pulling some of the inspirational notes together into early ideas or maybe even doodles.
    • Start formulating, but don’t worry about a “baked” idea yet
  3. “Crazy 8s”
    • In 8 mins, generate 8 wildly different ideas.
    • Be crazy, it’s about exploring.
  4. Solution Sketch
    • This is the sketch that the team will see.
    • This will convey an experience (3 panels for a beginning, middle, and end).
    • It should describe the details and show important features that could go into the prototype.
    • Utilize text, doodles, lines, arrows, and icons.
    • Have a title, but DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.
    • See
      "Sketching" ideas
       for more tips on creating your sketch