In this banger of a video, Jonathan Courtney from AJ&Smart takes us through how we can run a Growth Sprint. The outcome of a Growth sprint is a set of growth experiments that can be run to test out potential ways to grow a business.

In the book “Hacking Growth” a Growth Experiment is described as:

A 4-6 week genuine effort to test a theory about something that could spur growth

Hacking Growth – Morgan Brown & Sean Ellis

Below is a high level overview of what is covered in the video that you can use as a reference sheet when you are running your own growth sprints.

Growth Levers

Acquisition – how do people find you?
Activation – how do you turn those people into users
Retention – how do you keep them coming back?

PART 1

10am – 12.30pm

Requirements:

  • 1 decider
  • 1 facilitator
  • Blue Stickies
  • Yellow Stickies
  • Sharpies
  • Dots
  • Printer paper
  • Clipboards

Step 1 – Sail boat – what is pushing us forward?

10 minutes Yellow Stickies

For the 3 Growth Levers, each person in the team must come up with a few ideas that illustrate what is currently moving us forward .

5 minutes

Everybody reads out their ideas and sticks them to the board

Step 2 – Sail boat – what is holding us back?

10 minutes Blue Stickies

For the 3 Growth Levers, each person in the team must come up with a few ideas that illustrate what is currently holding us back.

These are stuck up without conversation.

10 minutes 10 Stickie Dots

The team now votes on issues that they think are most critical before the facilitator sorts them into the 3 Growth Lever categories, in order of votes.

Step 3 – HMW’s

10 minutes

As a group we convert the issues that have more than 1 vote into opportunities using the “How Might We” method.

Step 4 – Business Map

20 minutes white board & markers

Map out a funnel from acquisition through activation to retention

Step 5 – Map the issues

15 minutes

The facilitator will stick all of the HMW’s onto the map underneath their related Growth Levers – this should start to highlight areas where there is a cluster of issues – this is where you will target your efforts!

Step 6 – Lightening Demos

15 minutes – Phone or laptop, sharpies, Stickies

Now we have our target lever, we are going to spend 15 minutes researching how other companies have solved similar issues to the ones we have in our chosen target lever!
– 2-3 examples each
– Working alone
– for each idea you will create a stickie to help you explain it:

Each member will then have a max 3 minutes in total to present their ideas to the team as they stick them on the wall.

You can also choose things that the company has done before but you think could be improved!

LUNCH – OH YEAH -1 hour

PART 2

Step 6 – Reflection

20 minutes – clip-board paper sharpies

each team member will spend 20 minutes looking at all of the work that has been done, taking notes and writing down ideas for experiments that could be run

Step 7 – Design your Experiment

60 minutes – 3 sheets of a4, sharpies, tape, stickies

each team member will now design an experiment that can be run over the next 4-6 weeks

  • Name your Experiment
  • Explain why you think it will work
  • Explain how it will be executed
  • Explain how we will know if it has worked
  • Decide who will be responsible for executing it
  • Decide how long to run it for
  • Decide on a target success metric
  • A Growth Experiment Template

Step 8 – The Gallery

15 minutes – 1 dot each

Each person will spend 15 minutes reviewing all of the growth experiments on the wall and at the end of the 15 minutes the facilitator will ask the to vote on the best experiment.

Any experiments with no votes will be removed.

2 minutes each

The facilitator will ask each participant to explain why they voted how they did.

Step 9 – Prioritise

30 minutes – blue stickies, sharpies, whiteboard, markers

Each experiment name will be written on a postit and as a group we will add these to an Effort:Impact scale. If there are any disagreements, the decider makes the final call!

That’s it!

The next steps are for the team to schedule a session to review the experiment and for the PM to facilitate the rollout of the experiment!

Hopefully this playbook of a Growth Sprint will help you run your own sprints.

I would thouroughly reccomend the following links if you would like to do some additional reading and if you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment!

Hacking Growth:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hacking-Growth-Fastest-Growing-Companies-Breakout/dp/045149721X

Sprint
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sprint-Solve-Problems-Test-Ideas/dp/0593076117/

AJ & Smart Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeB_OpLspKJGiKv1CYkWFFw