Skip to content

Continuous design

Test the assumptions behind a solution with the cheapest experiment available. Use faster prototyping to validate ideas before committing to build.

Who it is for

Stream Teams

The whole Stream Team, because it generates, tests, and builds solutions together.

Duration
1 day

Inside the module

What the module covers

Continuous design treats design as risk reduction, because code is the most expensive way to test an idea.

A Stream Team generates several solutions to a prioritized customer problem, names the assumptions each one depends on, and tests the riskiest of them with the cheapest experiment available before committing to a full build. The cohort works through that loop on a real problem from its own product.

By the end, participants have practiced how to

  • Run an ideation session with 6-3-5 Brainwriting and SCAMPER that produces several distinct solutions to one customer problem
  • Identify the assumptions behind a solution across desirability, usability, feasibility, viability, and third-party risk, using assumption risk mapping and a pre-mortem
  • Prioritize assumptions with certainty-importance mapping and name the leap-of-faith assumptions to test first
  • Write an experiment plan with audience, hypothesis, method, and success criteria agreed before the test runs
  • Match an assumption to a practical experiment, from fake door and landing page tests to prototype, Wizard of Oz, and concierge tests
  • Moderate a usability session using an orientation script, think-aloud, and separate debriefs with the participant and the observers

Module outline

How the time is spent

Each part ends with a short exercise, on your own work where you have it and on a prepared case where you do not. We adapt the examples and emphasis to the people in the room.

  1. Generate more than one solution

    Countering the bias toward the first idea by generating many options as a whole team and choosing which to advance.

    The team starts on the planned line to a shipped checklist, then changes course at each piece of evidence: watching customers, finding that most stall at verification, and testing a simpler step. It reaches setup completed.

    Put it into practice

    Run two passes of brainwriting on one prioritized customer problem from your own product, then apply two SCAMPER prompts per group to the strongest cluster of ideas. Compare the results as a room and select three solutions to carry forward.

    Topics covered

    • Solution bias, groupthink, and premature convergence
    • 6-3-5 Brainwriting: six people, three ideas, five minutes
    • SCAMPER prompts from Substitute through Reverse
    • Compare and contrast for prioritizing solutions
    • Why scoring frameworks give false precision at this stage

  2. Surface and rank the assumptions

    Making explicit what would have to be true for each solution to work, then finding the assumptions that are both important and uncertain.

    Put it into practice

    Run a timed pre-mortem on one chosen solution, convert each cluster of failure modes into an assumption tagged by risk category, and place the assumptions on a certainty-importance matrix to name the three leap-of-faith assumptions to test first.

    Topics covered

    • Five risk categories: desirability, usability, feasibility, viability, third-party
    • Assumption risk mapping for each candidate solution
    • Pre-mortem in four steps, from failure story to assumptions
    • The gaming-the-system check on incentives
    • Certainty-importance mapping and leap-of-faith assumptions

  3. Design the experiment before running it

    Agreeing the audience, method, and success criteria up front so that a negative result cannot be explained away afterward.

    Put it into practice

    Write an experiment plan for your top leap-of-faith assumption, including the target audience by job to be done, the threshold that counts as success, and the positioning used in any test materials.

    Topics covered

    • Experiment plan: audience, hypothesis, method, success criteria, procedure, timeline, budget
    • Success criteria set in advance and hard to achieve
    • Methods: fake door, landing page, prototype, Wizard of Oz, concierge
    • Positioning in five questions for desirability test materials
    • Prototype fidelity from paper to wireframe to clickable

  4. Run the session and decide

    The mechanics of a moderated test and how findings return to the Opportunity Solution Tree, the team's map from a desired outcome to opportunities, solutions, and experiments.

    Put it into practice

    Run a practice usability test of the team’s own prototype, or a prepared one if it has none yet, with a facilitator playing the user from a briefed persona and participants taking turns as moderator and observers. Hold the observer debrief and decide against the criteria whether to proceed, adapt, or stop.

    Topics covered

    • Six-step moderated session, from pre-test questionnaire to observer debrief
    • Orientation script and the think-aloud technique
    • Moderator behavior: impartial, probing with care, no rescuing
    • Usability test guide: learnability, efficiency, errors, satisfaction
    • Validated and invalidated assumptions judged against the agreed criteria

Practical results

What the cohort leaves with

  • At least three candidate solutions for one real customer problem
  • A prioritized assumption matrix with the leap-of-faith assumptions named
  • An experiment plan for the riskiest assumption, with success criteria set before the test
  • A positioning statement and orientation script ready for the first test sessions
  • A shared rule for deciding to proceed, adapt, or stop once results come in

Before the module

Bring one prioritized customer problem and any existing solution ideas or prototypes for it.

The company learning plan

Where this module fits

Part of the Stream Teams courses, taken at the Equip the pilot team stage of the implementation.

See all company courses →

Stream Teams

Explore the supporting documentation