Design Thinking Toolkit
Design Thinking Toolkit
Long Term Goal

Long Term Goal

Recipe step number
Day 1, Activity 1
Description
Create a shared team vision
Reading Time
5 mins

Recipe: Design Sprint (Day 1)

  1. Long-Term Goal
  2. Killer Questions
  3. Map
  4. Ask the Experts
  5. Choosing a Target

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Materials needed: - Mural (digital whiteboard) - Microsoft Teams (or other video conference tool)

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More resources - links etc go here

Overview

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Why do we need a Long-Term Goal? In the Design Sprint we always "start at the end". Aligning on a Long-Term Goal helps the team move towards the same outcome together through the rest of the Sprint (and beyond).

Here's a video from Design Sprint agency AJ&Smart that shows the key steps of the Long-term Goal activity.

Key tips

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Key tips from the Sprint Book (pages 53-56)
  • Begin with the end in mind. If you did everything right in the Sprint, you should be well on the path to achieving your long-term goal.
  • Ask your team: “Why are we doing this project?" "Where do we want to be in six months, a year, or even five years from now?”
  • These questions are very important, so don’t expect them to be easy.
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Key learnings and tips from Advance Concepts™
  • Have a shared direction with the Decider prior to starting the Sprint, a “Challenge” to solve.
  • A strong Long-term Goal should be based from a key Business Problem AND a Customer Problem/Desire that relates.
  • It helps if the Long-term Goal envisions an outcome and has some aspirational metric of success.

How to do this activity

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Allow 30 mins
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[5 mins] Explain the activity
  • We will do this step separately in silence so we can think individually and collect diverse inputs
  • A Long-Term Goal should have:
    1. A Time frame: e.g. "In 2 years time..."
    2. A Specific aspirational achievement (for the focus of this Design Sprint) e.g. "...we will be the #1 choice for...", or "...we'll help customers do X..."
    3. A Metric (optional) : e.g. "...faster than competitor x", or "...improve efficiency by 50%"
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[3 mins] Participants each write a Long-Term Goal
  • Set the Mural timer for 3 mins
  • Everyone writes a Long-Term Goal (can write 2 or 3 if they like)
  • Use the format above starting with a time frame (e.g. in 2 years...")
  • Write each statement on a separate sticky
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[5 mins] Group Voting
  • Set the Mural voting tool to "3 votes each" and explain voting rules:
    • People can vote on their own stickies
    • They can put multiple dots on one sticky (if they want)
  • Set the Mural timer to 3 mins, and start voting (in silence)
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[5-10 mins] Decider Vote
  • Set the Mural timer to 5 mins (can add more time if needed)
  • The Decider can consult the group and ask questions that might help them decide (if they want to)
  • The Decider chooses the Long-Term Goal that:
    • Best suits the Sprint's challenge
    • Provides the clearest direction for the group to understand and work towards