Phase 1: agree on the challenge

How Might We facilitate interaction on the platform?

The very first thing we should do is set the focus and scope for the MVP. Take a look at the statements in the middle of the Ecosystem Relationship Portrait. What brings the roles together and how might the platform facilitate the interaction? We want to capture this in the form of a HMW (How Might We) question to reframe the problem that we want to solve as a question. Discussion on the HMW also helps the team align on the context.

Exercise HMW (40 mins) Look at the statements in the Ecosystem Relationship Portrait and reframe a key interaction from those statements into a HMW question. - [15 mins] Individually, write on rectangular post-its potential candidate questions for the MVP. The question always starts with "How Might We..". - [15 mins] Stick all post-its on a wall and then everyone calls out common themes they observe. Work together to cluster HMW’s together and add a blue post-it with the theme. - [5 mins] Everyone gets 2 red dots to vote on HMW’s and 4 dots for the Decider. - [5 mins] Collect the top 5 and let the Decider select the final HMW.

In our case, looking at the journey of the Host on the Experience Map, we can phrase its journey as:

“How might we help a host to present its room to the world, set the price and receive the payments?”.

Zooming 2 years out into the future

The How Might We is our goal for the MVP. Now we need to find out what is actually preventing us from getting there. To do that, we first zoom out into the future and imagine a world in which we'll face no obstacles at all and everything goes smooth. What will the ideal world look like in 2 years if the constraints would not exist?

Exercise 2 Year Goal (20 mins) Be optimistic and make sure to aim high. - [5 mins] Take a look at the Innovation Engine from Position, and in particular the challenges to stand out. - [5 mins] Everyone takes a block of rectangular post-its and writes down a sentence in form of “In two years’ time….” + what will happen to the ecosystem. - [10 mins] One person at a time, stick the post-it on the wall and read it out loud. - [5 mins] Dot vote (1 red dot each) on the 2 Year Goal that is most clear and inspirational. The Decider cannot vote. - [5 mins] The Decider now decides the 2 Year Goal using a green dot.

In our case, if everything goes right then Airbnb becomes such a big marketplace in 2 years that Hosts would be able to make a living off renting out their room, so we set the goal as follows:

"In two years time we want to provide a stable primary source of income for 25% of our hosts."

Naming the constraints through Sprint Questions

Now that we zoomed out, we can more clearly see what could stop us getting to the 2 Year Goal. In other words, what it is that constrains us. The challenges from the Innovation Engine of the Position workshop are of great help here, so we make sure to reuse and build upon these insights. Similar to the HMW, these constraints are formulated as a question in order to invoke a more solution-oriented atmosphere in the workshop.

Exercise Sprint Questions (35 mins) - [5 mins] Take a look at the Innovation Engine from Position, and in particular the challenges to start out and stand firm.­ - [10 mins] Everyone takes a block of rectangular post-its and writes down 1-3 questions in form of “Can we...” + risky question / assumption that should be answered / validated. - [10 mins] One person at a time, participants stick the post-it on the wall and reads it out loud. - [5 mins] Dot vote (1 red dot each) on the question that is most important to answer. The Decider cannot vote. - [5 mins] The three post-it’s with most dots form the top 3. Then, the Decider decides the top 1 question using a green dot. The top 3 are all preserved.

With our 2 Year Goal in mind we come up with the following three Sprint Questions:

• “Can we offer sufficient primary income to someone that rents out one 2-person accommodation full-time?”

• “Can we convince Guests to become Hosts?”

• “Can we offer supporting services to Guests that make them stay on our platform?”

Determine the constrained role

The main relationship is formed by two roles. However, for the MVP, we want to focus on one role’s perspective as the Design Sprint is made for products rather than platforms. A platform can be seen as multiple products (one for each role) that are linked to each other. Therefore, we can transform our platform experience into a prodcut by deciding upon 1 role for which we want to do this workshop. We call that role the constrained role.

If you either are running this Design Sprint with a problem for a specific role in mind or previously did a Design Sprint for the other role, then continue to the next exercise with that role as the most constrained one.

Otherwise we want to focus on the role that is most constrained. Remember that platforms create value by taking away friction or 'transactions costs' and making it easier for different types of roles to interact and exchange. We want to pick the role with the highest transaction costs as our constrained role in this workshop. Take a look at the Sprint Questions. These are the constraints that we want to take away. Are these constraints clearly more related to one role than the other? If so, then that is your constrained role.

If the Sprint Questions do not have an obvious tendency towards one role, then a tiebreaker method is to count the number of services related to each role on the Experience Map. More services indicates that the platform offers more to that role to enable interaction. In other words, the role was most constrained before our platform came around.

Exercise Determining the Constrained Role (5 mins) Use one of the three rules to determine the constrained role: - 1 - If you have a specific problem in mind then pick the related role as the most constrained. - 2 - Else if the Sprint Questions are clearly more related to one role then that is your constrained role. - 3 - Otherwise examine the journey of both roles on the Experience Map and count the number of services involved in both. Pick the role with the most services as the most constrained role.

For our Airbnb case, we just went through the Position workshop and did not do any Design Sprints yet, so rule 1 is not applicable. If we look at the Sprint Questions, then we see that the first is about Hosts, the second about both and the third about Guests. Based on this we conclude that there is no obvious tendency towards one role. Therefore, we resort to the tiebreaker rule number 3. We count the services on the Experience Map and conclude that the Host is the most constrained role.

Map Drawing and Target Setting

Now we want to find a particular part of the whole journey to focus our MVP on that we think could take away the constraints. We draw a map in this phase to visualize the journey of the constrained role and agree on the specific area of the journey that is to be the scope of our MVP, which also makes sure thate we all have the same picture in our heads. Below we see the basic outline.

The left arrow contains the role, while the blocks on the right contains an objective based on the 2 Year Goal. In the middle, we will add blocks connected by arrows that describe the process towards to objectives. The middle is divided into three categories: Discover, Learn, and Start. The Discover phase is where the user might find out about the thing/product/service/etc., for example through a Facebook ad. This is a passive step. The Learn phase is where a user might learn more about it, by actively seeking it out, such as a marketing page. The Start phase is a user would take an action to interact with it and 'buy' it.

Work together on a whiteboard with the template below to map out the interaction on the platform from the perspective of the constraining role. Start by drawing the touchpoints and services (green and blue boxes below) from the Experience Map that are related to the constrained role. Then, add additional boxes to complete the picture (red boxes below). These boxes are either added to columns that are still empty or are used to put more emphasize on a step that was not so explicit in the Experience Map. For instance, below we add the 'Set price' in between services.

After the map has been created, the Facilitator takes a coloured marker and the group decides together on an area of the map that will be the scope of the MVP. Keep in mind here the 2 Year Goal and also the touchpoints and services.

Exercise Map Drawing (no strict time limit) - Draw the structure of the map, including the role names on the left and the objective on the right (see below). - Take a look at the touchpoints and services from the Experience Map and the direction and contents of the transactions in the Transaction Engine. - Draw blocks with the names of the touchpoints in green and blocks with services in blue. Usually, all blocks fit under the ‘Use’ category, but not always. - In red, draw additional blocks to complete the chain from role to goal (Discover column is still often empty). - Connect the blocks by arrows. Use the Transaction Engine for details on what transaction takes place around touchpoints.

Exercise Target Setting (no strict time limit) - After the map has been created, the Facilitator takes a coloured marker. Decide together on an area of the map that will be the scope of the MVP. Keep in mind here the 2 Year Goal and also the touchpoints and services from the Experience Map.

Below you see the map that we came up with for our leading example. In addition to the touchpoints and services, we added some boxes in the Discover and Learn columns as they were empty. Also, we added a 'Set price' box. As we aim to provide a primary income to our Hosts, we expect that setting the price will be an important step. Then, we decide to exclude the Discover column boxes as well as the 'Book' touchpoint.