After having seen design thinking be used in all kinds of ways, I was often left frustrated at it often being more about moving through the hexagons vs empathizing, asking the right questions, and examining whether the problem presented had been framed correctly.

Too often design thinking becames about an activity vs a mindset and shift in how we work that enhances the culture of an organization. When I learned about the design sprint, it filled in so many of the missing pieces by providing a more detailed structure. I first learned about the process when I read, “Sprint – How to Solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days.” It sounds crazy doesn’t it, solve and test a problem in just five days?

After attending my first design sprint conference in 2019 and interviewing so many incredible people about how they are using this process on the podcast, I saw so many parallels to how it could be used to frame and solve the many challenges we have in education to create new and exciting opportunities. A few weeks ago I came across this article in my feed, “Revolutionizing the public school system: A Design sprint case study.” I knew this was a person I wanted to interview and this week I’m delighted to have Daniel Andor on the podcast. Daniel is the founder and lead product designer at Durran. He helps startups go from idea to validation with real users in just a few days and design awesome digital products faster by running Design Sprint workshops. In the last 9+ years he has worked with companies ranging from early stage startups to enterprise businesses, in domains such as Technology, Healthcare, Education or Professional Services. Wanting to help and give back, he also started to coach junior designers and gathered a local community where designers can learn and grow together.

In This Episode Daniel Shares:

• The design sprint process and how it can be used to frame and solve problems
• How Daniel used the design sprint process to make a career transition during the pandemic and how you can use it as well
• The case study with an edtech company serving 650 schools and 100,000+ users
• The difference between trying to do a sprint in house vs bringing in a facilitator to design the experience
• How the problem framing process enriches the sprint experience and the gap Daniels team discovered during their research phase
• The benefits of engaging in a sprint when we are feeling overwhelmed by change, yet would like to make an impact
• The role of design sprints in education

To Learn More

To read the full case study Daniel references in the podcast click here. To connect with Daniel visit his website where you’ll also be able to find links to all his social channels. I personally really enjoyed Daniel’s “Startup Strategy Bundle” to be really insightful and it’s a free download 🙂 I hope you enjoyed hearing from Daniel on this week’s episode and we look forward to you sharing your feedback by tagging us online in your Instagram stories or on LinkedIn.