True North

In 2016 a design partner from Google Ventures (GV), Jake Knapp, released a book called Sprint. The book introduced the idea of Design Sprints, a concept that had existed within Google for several years and was a mainstay in the toolset employed by GV with their portfolio of companies. The beauty of Jake’s book is that it is very specific, there is even a 15-page checklist for when you are running your own Design Sprints. This however did not stop a swathe of folks from appropriating the name, but not the core ideas. What this in turn meant is that acts were being committed under the name of Design Sprint but were not even remotely close to what Jake describes in Sprint. In this episode we dive into what Design Sprints really are, address their detractors and we visit the enterprise giant, Aus Post, where they ran 4 sprints in 5 weeks.

Imagine for a moment that we are back in the early 2000’s – 2005 to be specific. You are in San Francisco & own fledgling design agency. You saw first hand the highs achieved by those at the crest of the dotcom bubble & what happened to them once it burst. The design agency you started only a few years early has begun to attract some amazing clients. Celebrities, technology companies like Google & industry giants like NASA. So, what would you say if a new, unproven start-up came to you & offered equity in return for designing their brand & logo? This is the question posed to the Cuban Council when Mark Zuckerberg & Sean Parker met with them in 2005.

In recent years Atlassian has grown from 4 designers to over 120. In this period they've undergone rapid change & widespread scaling challenges. In this episode we go inside their design, growth & UX teams to learn their tips & secrets for continuing to perform at an elite level in order to deliver a world class product.