Day 4: Prototype
This is part three of a five part series. If you’d like to catch up, start here: Day 1: Empathize, Day 2: Define, Day 3: Ideate
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“Holy shit I can do this.”
The reward for putting in the hard work of Day 4 is the realization that you can actually achieve this thing. It doesn’t mean that it will be easy to do, but having an understanding of the work you need to put in to achieve something, having those expectations going into it, can give you a lot more confidence about taking on the challenge. Otherwise, launching into something full of uncertainty sets you up for failure.
OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Measures) is the backbone of today. I seem to know more people who’ve heard of this framework every time I introduce the sprint to them and I think it’s popularity speaks to the value of it. It’s value lies in the phrasing of each of the pieces so that it functions properly as a framework.
Your Objective should be an inspiring paragraph that imagines the state of your life in a future where you’ve achieved this. Describe how your life is different in the ways you want this objective to impact your life. Describe how you’ll feel about yourself if you do it.
As described on Day 2: Define Goals are going to be a very specific thing in this process. Goals will represent specific steps that need to be taken in order to achieve the objective. Basically, adhere to the structure of SMART Goals.
Building out the Strategies for each goal is a great opportunity to bring out the Resource Inventory. There are likely going to be additional needs to consider that you hadn’t anticipated back in the early Prioritization Matrix. Capture what actions you need to complete and what resources you need to achieve each goal. One unexpected outcome of this has been the reaction of people I’ve told were in my Resource Inventory and what I considered them an expert in. As someone who’s usually terrified of being a bother to people, it was really cool to see them delighted, a little touched, and happy to help.
Measures are all about knowing when you’ve achieved a goal. These should have some type of number you can track like number sales, followers, email sign-ups, miles run, etc.
Once the OGSM is filled out, it’s time to build the Roadmap. All of the goals will end up on this roadmap. Start with the end in mind. Some objectives have firm deadlines like finishing a marathon for example. Start with the date of the event and work backwards. If your objective doesn’t have a built in deadline, give yourself one but be specific with the date for the purposes of the roadmap. This now gives us an idea of the window of time required to achieve the objective. Now go back to the start, and work forward to plot out each goal, approximating how long it will take to complete. Doing the road map on a wall with tape and Post-it notes or a space that gives you flexibility to adjust goals if you need to but also to keep it top of mind.
Another great Tim Ferris tool that’s helpful at this point is Define, Prevent, Repair. He gave a powerful Ted Talk on this if you’d like to learn the origins (Just a heads up that he does discuss a suicidal episode he had at the beginning. Fast forward to 1:45 if you need to skip that part.) This step helps put the risk in perspective. I don’t think I went into as great of detail as Tim describes in his talk but rather just captured the essential pieces.
Lastly is creating a Next Action list. These are the immediate next steps for the next 7 days, 14 days, and 21 days out. Take the first goal and lay out the to do list of steps you can take each day to work towards achieving it.
It’s a powerful moment to see it mapped out. It feels real, achievable. If you put the work in to plan it out on Day 4 then you already have the drive in you to achieve it.
PERSONAL DESIGN SPRINT
INSTRUCTIONS: Prototype
TOTAL TIME: 2 Hours
Step 1: (30 minutes) OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies, Measures)
Step 2: (50 minutes) Roadmap — Start with the end in mind. Drop in a due date for when the objective needs to be achieved by and map out the timeline into weekly chunks. Starting with the first goal, lay out each successive goal in the approximate time you can/need to complete the goal by.
Step 3: (30 Minutes) Define, Prevent, Repair — Consider any risks, challenges or fears you may have in trying to achieve this objective in the Define column. In the Prevent column, next to each item write down what you can do to prevent that from happening. In the third column, Repair, write down what you can do if any of the issues occur. You won’t be able to anticipate every challenge, but for the ones you’re concerned about, you’ll have a plan.
Step 4: (10 Minutes) Next Action List — Write down all of the immediate steps you can begin taking over the next 7 days, 14 days, and 21 days. Break down the first couple of goals into specific steps. For example, “Email XYZ resource to set up meeting.”, “Register domain name.” etc.
