452: Using exploration, alignment, and decision-making to innovate into the unknown – with Atif Rafiq

What product managers need to know about the Decision Sprint framework for faster problem-solving Today we are talking about faster problem-solving to speed innovation by using a three-part framework including Exploration, Alignment, and Decision-Making. Our guest is Atif Rafiq. He invented a system for problem-solving based on his 25-year career spanning Silicon Valley and the Fortune 500. His ideas proved so impactful as a competitive advantage that they sped his rise at Amazon and later to C-suite positions he held at companies, including McDonald’s as their first Chief Digital Officer, and at Volvo and MGM Resorts. He has written DECISION SPRINT: The New Way to Innovate into the Unknown and Move from Strategy to Action. He joins us to share how it works. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:03] Why do we need Decision Sprint? We’re in an era of economic austerity, so the bar for innovation has been raised in most organizations. This means we need a way of innovating that is more purposeful. It’s one thing to have a promising idea and another thing to get the buy-in for it. CEOs are talking about sharpening the pencil to be more confident about the ideas they’re supporting. If you’re a product manager and you have promising ideas, the bar has been raised. Even if the times were a little brighter, we have the problem of getting the organization to agree to a good idea and getting stakeholder alignment. Rather than leaving it to personalities, we need a methodology so that we can objectively take good ideas forward. To solve big problems to innovate, we have to create shared understanding for everybody who is involved in pulling off the big idea. What are the components of a design sprint? [5:25] Exploration The first step is to define the problem statement. If people have a different interpretation of that, and you only realize that a month down the line, that’s problematic. Next, canvass the key unknowns behind the problem statement and create a good question list. I recommend independently sourcing questions from your team. This is powerful because you make it a deliberate step in the process. Having questions come up organically is potentially detrimental because it can cause you to find blind spots too late. By sourcing questions independently, you get a more diverse set of questions that are more relevant with fewer blind spots. If you have a great question list, you have the basis of an exploration. [8:19] Tell us more about making a question list. The initial understanding of the problem is usually a little bit murky. For example, if Netflix has a problem with password sharing, that’s not the problem statement. The problem statement is something more like, “How do we do the right thing for customers while minimizing the abuse of sharing passwords?” You’re trying to balance to things. A good problem statement usually includes some trade-offs. The problem statement is nuanced; the answer is not obvious. Before rushing ahead to opinions and recommendations, teams should spend time building an exploration. This could take just a few days. I independently ask people to make question lists asynchronously over about two days. Then we share the questions with the team and see the patterns and overlap. It’s fun to see the collective intelligence of the team, and this builds a lot of positive team dynamics because you see the power of a team. Team members are glad we did it independently because each person sees ideas they wouldn’t have thought of. We assign people to answer and review questions. I share the question list with sponsors, such as a commercial leader, legal team members, and a product leader. This allows the sponsors to see the progress and have the ability to contribute without micromanaging. [17:51] Alignment