Like every small business Owner, you have lots to do. And that adds to your stress and overloading.
But it doesn’t have to be this way!
This Introduction to Sprints will take less than a hour and will change your life!
To allow us to support you on your journey, we encourage you to register your email as the next step Yellow Belt
Table of Contents
A little Background on Sprints
Sprints come from the IT world and are a proven technique for speeding up and managing projects.
We apply these proven techniques to your business to speed it up and reduce your stress and workload.
We present this solution as a number of Steps.
Read and do each Step
There are numerous links in the text. These are designed to allow you to learn more on a topic when you want. There is no need to visit every link on this pass through. Here we just want to demonstrate how simple and effective Sprints are.
Step 1: Plan Phase
Before you start doing Sprints, you need to identify and prioritise your options. This allows you to always keep focused on the most important issues and not get distracted by passing “bright shiny objects”. It reduces your stress because you are confident that the most important issues are being addressed.
We use the Plan, Do, Check, Act System (PDCA) used by successful businesses worldwide.
Step 1.1: List Candidate Tasks
A Sprint is a short, high intensity and focused exercise to improve some aspect of your business. We suggest a Sprint length of 1-2 weeks but, depending on your business, you might set a longer or shorter period. You can change this time period as you become more familiar with the technique.
You will have a number of possible things (we call Candidates) you can do to improve your business over the next 1-2 weeks.
- They should each take several days but not more than the max. Sprint length you have chosen. If longer, break into parts
- they can be
- Operational: e.g. install new accounting software, make new banking arrangements
- Personal Development: e.g. learn about Sprints and implement first, get yourself onto a time management system
- Strategic: e.g. explore hiring new staff member, research Google Ads for marketing
- write these Candidates down, 1 per line or add to a Word or spreadsheet document. You want a system that you can refer to regularly to monitor the Candidate tasklist. We use the free app ToDoIst for this as it works on all your devices. More on this in the MoSCoW Method article in next Step.
- add to this list whenever you think of another Candidate. Get it out of your head and onto your list so that you relieve the mental stress of trying to remember everything.
Pause for a minute and write down Candidates that come to mind right now.
A great byproduct of making this list is that they are out of your mind and down on paper so you are not wasting precious mindspace trying to remember all the things you have to do. This immediately relieves one of the sources of stress for Owners.
Step 1.2: Prioritise Candidate Tasks
You will have a lot more Candidate tasks than you can possibly do in the next Sprint period of 1-2 weeks so we need to prioritise them so you do the most impactful first.
We have advanced prioritising methods that you can use in future but, for now, we suggest you use the Yellow Belt MoSCoW Method.
Simply, you write a (M)ust, (S)hould, (C)ould, (W)ait against each Candidate in your list. This relies on your “gut” but at this early stage that is quite a workable approach.
Now Plan to Do the (M)ust ranked candidates. Take care to only take on the number of tasks that you can get done fully in the Sprint of 1-2 weeks. Otherwise you run the risk of the adverse effects of Multitasking.
Now you are at the end of the Plan Phase, your achievements are;
- you have listed all the Candidate tasks and got them out of your head and onto paper so you have decluttered your mind
- ranked all these Candidates by priority for action using the MoSCoW Method so you will be laser-focused on the best way to move forwards and not be distracted by “bright shiny objects” that turn up
- selected the first 1-2 week Sprint tasks to focus on for maximum progress
That is the end of the Plan Phase of the PDCA Cycle for Sprints. It probably takes you 15-20 minutes or less once you already have a list of Candidates in future.
Step 2: Do Phase
The Do Phase in the PDCA Cycle you are following will vary widely depending on just what you want to do so we can’t be too specific here.
You can start the Do Phase for the Sprints you have identified but read the rest of the steps in this article first so you always have them in mind when “Doing”
There are probably two broad parts to this Do Phase; what to do and how to do it.
As both involve some discovery, we have suggestions to help;
- when you go to a doctor with symptoms, they will do a diagnostic. 12Faces has diagnostic tools that might help you discover solutions. Start here
- you can also Search the whole of 12Faces content
- undoubtedly AI can be of assistance. The internet brought us access to every bit of business advice on earth. AI is the perfect research assistant that can digest all this information and propose suggestions. Remember that it does make mistakes.
- IF you need some human-help, try our Community or our Volunteer Mentoring
- this research will probably throw up other Candidate task. DON’T get distracted following them but DO add them to your Candidates list for consideration with the next Sprint
Take a few minutes to research solutions to the Must Tasks you prioritized in the previous step.
Step 3: Check Phase
Towards the end of each Sprint, you should reflect on what happened during the Sprint.
Inevitably, some Sprints will be aborted or fail. But, in its own way, this is good news. Rather than spend a lot of time and money on a project, you have quickly discovered it is not viable and can save further time and money.
Spend a few minutes at the end of every Sprint reviewing what happened and what you have learnt.
Step 4: Act Phase
A strong part of the 12Faces philosophy is that we want to ratchet up your recurring improvement cycle. Ratchet mean you put in place checks to reduce the likelihood of making the same mistakes again so every Sprint improves your business’s operation.
Some of the checks you might put in place include;
- if the Sprint failed, why? What can we do to prevent that in future
- what changes were made to your operating procedures. People will naturally slip back into old habits so your improvements may be lost. Updating your Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) will ensure current and future staff know what to do without consuming your time asking questions
- update the list of Sprint Candidates. This completed Sprint can come off the list but other Candidates may have been discovered during the execution of this Sprint and you don’t want to lose that knowledge.
Wrap-up
In just a few minutes, you have learnt how to do the repeatable Sprints that will ratchet your business forward. Because you are always focusing on the Most important, you are moving ahead as fast as possible.
At any point, if you want to improve your Sprint planning techniques, you can read more in the reference materials linked from this article.
Sprints are great for short term projects but we also need a longer term, more strategic, approach to improving your business and reducing your stress. Our 90 Day GamePlans do just that. And the good news is they use the same approach as Sprints so you already know how to do them.
Get a 30 minute Introduction to 90 Day Gameplans here
What’s Next?
- The ancient Greek philosopher Plato said “expression is impression!” You should now immediately start doing your next Sprint as this is the very best way to learn how to do them and perfect your technique. You identified the Sprint in the Plan Phase above so now get going on their Do Phase.
- If you have a larger business with staff, you can make Sprints a company-wide practice once you have mastered the concept. Staff will know a lot more about the detail of their jobs than you do so actively involving them will make the best use of your resources.
- 12Faces also has a 90 day GamePlan System that is essentially a bigger Sprint so equally straightforward. You can read our introductory material on GamePlans when ready to master the next step
- We also have a Bronze Medallion Course on our small business planning technique designed for Yellow Belt entry-level Owners who what to improve their planning skills
- please give us feedback on how to improve this article for those that come after you. Make a contribution to your fellow Owners. Email us on reception@backstop.business
This article was provided by Scott Williams AO FAIDC. It describes the way best practice in many management areas has been brought together in the 12Faces GamePlan System. The Goal is to provide an easy to use and repeatable “flywheel” to improve small business owners’ outcomes. Scott is the Founder of NFP small business support services 12Faces and MentorSME and has a Philanthropic Foundation supporting students in education. Scott’s business Petals Network was National Small Business of the Year and 4 times in the Top 100 Fastest Growing Australian Businesses LinkedIn