Tasked with actioning a client’s existing breakthrough idea, The Garage Group and an interdisciplinary client team set out to iteratively design, prototype, and validate the platform against a specific consumer segment. After doing so, the team created a roadmap detailing how to get the project to market and make the entire process repeatable for the client team. This project came to life by utilizing and combining several entrepreneurial methodologies including Design Sprint, Lean Startup Thinking, and an MVP lab.
The project kicked off with a comprehensive, 2-day knowledge audit between The Garage Group and the client team. The session consisted of sharing out the project scope, key background documents, and introduction to The Garage Group’s Lean Growth Playbook, with information on the key innovation concepts to be used.
After aligning on the scope of the project, The Garage Group led and facilitated a 5-day Design Sprint, customized to accommodate the needs of the team throughout the Sprint. Over the following five days, the team would generate a solution, build a prototype, and test it with consumers.
The first day of the Sprint was used to ground the team in the full problem that they were attempting to solve in order to identify the client’s riskiest assumptions. These findings went to drive the entire Sprint, as the team solved against what must be true to bring the problem to life.
The team then diverged to generate multiple potential solutions, that could manifest in a variety of ways (including potential decision engines, recommendations, algorithms, value propositions, etc.).
Team members iteratively explored several potential solutions, ultimately landing on one final direction
The Garage Group then helped the team generate key assumptions about the solution (across consumer and the business model). The client team then prioritized the riskiest assumptions from which to build the initial, conceptual prototype. In the afternoon, the team will focused on creating a conceptual prototype to test with consumers on Friday.
To test the initial concept, The Garage Group facilitated 2
rounds of consumer feedback, with optimization in-between. For each round, The Garage Group recruited 5 to seat 4 consumers (total of 10) to participate in quick, 30 minute 1:1 interviews (online, video chat with document sharing) to generate initial interest and appeal behind the concept. Based on the insights from this research, the team debriefed and discussed the scope of the first MVP Lab (type of prototype, method of testing, etc).
Following the Design Sprint, The Garage Group summarized key information from
the Design Sprint and co-presented the recommended Build, Test, Learn plan to iteratively test and validate the prototype. The goal of this meeting was to share work to date and gain alignment to the testing plan in the following phase.
To kick off the MVP Lab, The Garage Group and client team reviewed the riskiest assumptions to ground the session. From there, the team developed and built out a prototype, utilizing learnings from the Design Sprint in order to further validate the solution, and gain key insights.
To test the solution, The Garage Group recruited 10 consumers to share the prototype with. The Garage Group and client team watched in real time as participants were exposed to the prototype and asked key questions in order to gain quick, targeted feedback.
The Garage Group and client team went into a Mini-Design Sprint with the goal of working through the feasibility and viability of bringing the solution to life. The original plan had been to do a second MVP Lab and further focus on consumer validation, but The Garage Group and client team decided to pivot, having gained the validation and rich insights they needed from the Design Sprint and first MVP Lab.
The Mini-Design Sprint consisted of mapping out the consumer journey and identifying the key requirements and features needed to quickly action the solution. At the conclusion of the three separate sessions, the team had a validated prototype for the chosen ecosystem, along with key design requirements or features needed to deliver the validated prototype.
The purpose of this phase was to enable the client team to fully develop the roadmap to build the validated prototype. To achieve this, The Garage Group facilitated a 1-day session to explore critical design requirements for getting the solution to market.
In just 8 weeks, The Garage Group helped the client team to iteratively craft, build, and validate an entire platform, complete with a roadmap for bringing the entire project to life. By utilizing The Garage Group’s Lean Growth Playbook, the client team was able to hustle like entrepreneurs, creating a product to meet client needs. Because the innovation process was designed to be repeatable, the client team left the session armed with the capabilities and entrepreneurial know-how to tackle their future innovation challenges.
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