Addressing Critical Findings with Guerilla UX Sprints
Goals
– To dedicate a workstream to non-roadmap priority items
– To allow focused UX-first exploration and problem solving
– To lead the process in prioritising and outlining tickets from a UX standpoint
– To bring priority items back into focus
– To address design debt which otherwise loses traction
Methods
User research, interviews, testing, wireframes, collaboration, iterative design
Project Overview
Guerilla sprints focus on findings identified from long-term user research and patterns = low risk, high reward
Switching seats empowers UX/UXR with time, not driven by the usual feature release cadence
Building based on research becomes increasingly important against the pressure to release sensational features
Why?
Within my first year at Florence, a key drawback I identified as leading user advocate was the trade-off of prioritising rapid feature delivery over continuous user experience refinement. The immense pressure to quickly ship new features and functionality to meet business goals, engage investors and stay competitive can often lead to overlooking less critical but still significant issues. Over many development cycles, these smaller compromises and shortcuts accumulate, resulting in a gradually degraded overall user experience.
As the months progressed, I felt it increasingly critical to revisit and address persistent UX challenges systematically, recognising the need to proactively acknowledge the user voice and address design debt that had built over time.
Enter Guerilla Sprints
In light of the pace of roadmaps and team capacity, I felt it appropriate to make this a behind-the-scenes sprint initially capped to design and UX alone where discussions would be guided by our UXR. Following exploration, low-fis and micro testing sprints, we’d bring PMs and engineers into the room for collaboration and ultimately, buy-in to introduce the work into an active roadmap.
"Every distraction imposes a cost on the depth of your focus. Design Sprints are all about creating focused time for innovation." Jake Knapp, Author of "Sprint"
In a brief period of time, Guerilla UX Sprint empowered us towards changing the narrative within our teams, investing into the overall user experience while maintaining regular feature development velocity. We were building meaningful features which would alter the core experience for both clients and carers.
Key Wins
- ‘Free time’ tickets for the design team to focus solely on exploring and prototyping solutions, this rejuvenated creativity and reinforced practical user advocacy,
- Exploring low-fis and design concepts during these dedicated sprints allowed for discussion without immediate technical constraints,
- Collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders, namely engineers and PMs, allowed alignment on proposed solutions and exposed wider team to user research,
- Ultimately, prioritising and integrating the validated solutions into main product roadmap/s for implementation
"Design Sprints are a powerful tool for validating ideas and getting to product/market fit faster." Jeff Gothelf, Author of "Lean UX"
Below is the board for our ‘Continuity of Care’ Guerilla UX Sprint from which many integral features were born such as block bookings, carer availability and improved rating systems on both sides of the shift marketplace.
Overall Impact
Within just 6 months of launching, Guerilla UX Sprints as an initiative has been pivotal in bringing to the fore numerous core UX challenges which had previously been deprioritised. The sprint has often demonstrated the value and potential behind addressing said concerns to senior stakeholders through practical exploration and collaboration.
To date, every ticket raised and subsequently addressed during our Guerilla UX Sprints has either already been implemented or is currently in progress. This collaborative approach has not only led to tangible improvements in our product’s usability but also fostered a culture of continuous user-centred design through honouring the user voice – an important standard for any organisation who treasures sustainable growth.