What is an Insight Sprint?

Constant change in society, culture and business is the new normal. It is this new reality that has given birth to the insight sprint.

Over the next 14 days, I am going to conduct a ‘publishing sprint’. I’ll publish an article every day articulating what I think an insight sprint is. I’ll also explore the concept in the context of the existing research industry.

But first, so you can understand where I’m coming from, allow me to tell you a little bit about myself.

Researcher and Collaborator

I’ve worked in research for ten years, starting in 2008 - around the time social media really took off.

I’ve captured strategic insight for leading brands in every category - I’ve mapped cultural trends for Facebook, investigated indulgence for Unilever, looked at urban fashion for Net-a-Porter, mapped grime music for BBC 1xtra, explored laptop purchasing for Hewlett Packard and so on.

As well as these projects, I’m about to start my second year of teaching research methods on the ‘Design, Management and Culture’ course at the University of Arts London. Collaborating with the third-year students, we have been mobilising research theory with a practical project called ‘(dis)Connected Lives’ - a deep investigation of our digital experiences. Over the past 18 months we have been growing this project, and have mapped out 12 digital pathologies and offered 12 digital remedies.

Much of what I intend to share over these next 14 days is material that I will be sharing with the students there.

Finally, I am a member of a research guild. We’re a London based collective of practitioners from across academia and industry. This gives me access to some of the most inspiring and progressive thinkers in this space — most of what I share is what I have learned from them.

A New Business Model

My motivation for this series is to launch a new service: InsightSprint.io

I intend it to be a challenger to the traditional agency model of conducting research — a model that I find to be flawed for several reasons.

Instead, the Insight Sprint should be thought about as an approach to research that leans on the possibilities of networked individualism.

Understanding the limitations of the agency model will help understand what an insight sprint can become:

1. First is the insight that many of the best researchers aren’t found in agencies. Instead — they have set-up shop on their own. They are developing their own unique way of understanding the world and offer it on their terms. A one-hour chat with one of these specialists can unlock more insight than a dozen focus groups.
2. There is an expectation that agencies deliver polished research. Of course, research should have clarity. But one of the most interesting aspects of the research I have done on ‘Millennial’s’ and ‘Generation Z’ is how they embrace imperfection. Also, embracing failure is a key feature of start-up culture.
3. Research from agencies often uses a top-down/stage-gate strategy. This process typically involves a proposal being written and then followed — with the agency ticking the boxes along the way. Instead, the networked approach of the insight sprint creates ‘emergent insight’ — focusing instead on reaching theoretical saturation as quickly as possible. This type of insight is more transformational and profound than the tick-box approach.
4. Agencies become stuck in their way. They might fall back on their templates and frameworks — and this makes them inflexible. An agency approach that was once at the bleeding edge will quickly become stale — culture moves too fast. Instead, networks and communities have core principles and philosophies that they use to problem solve.
5. There seems to be a disconnect between the world of academic research and business research that the agency model isn’t helping. There is a long and interesting history of the relationship between these two worlds. The networked model of insight will unlock a new chapter in this story. We need to work closer together.
6. A networked model of research cuts out the heavy middle management. Money and time previously spent on servicing a client gets put into specialists doing what they do best.
7. Agencies hoard information and knowledge. What the world needs now is radical sharing — we need knowledge to build on knowledge. We need open-sourced collaborative ecosystems. Not competitive advantage, but collaborative advantage.
8. Finally, agencies are profitability-driven. This conflicts with the motivations of researchers. Most that I know will work for very little if they find the topic interesting or beneficial to the world. It’s this passion that gave them their powerful depth of insight in the first place.

All the above are impediments to what should be our overall goal as an industry — getting research used more often. Instead of smoke and mirrors, we should be encouraging people to unlock their own inner researcher.

So — what is an insight sprint

The insight sprint is simple. A set period of time — say two weeks — to explore, map and communicate a concept. And it is based on a networked approach to insight as opposed to an agency approach.

With that in mind, there are a few broad things we can say about it:

• Set itself limits in terms of both budget and time — this frugality forces innovative thinking
• Embraces complexity, takes an emergent approach to insight, and focuses on action
• Pulls on talent from a range of places, actively seeking new thinking
• Disrupts the traditional client/supplier relationship, changing the power balance into one of mutually beneficial collaboration — bringing the researchers into the core team
• Encourages vulnerability and failure. It understands that there aren’t right and wrong answers to questions, only useful and non-useful ones
• Results in a strengthening of the overall networked ecosystem
• Is beneficial to both society and the environment — this means that it can benefit from the power of intrinsic motivations (such as civic virtue/curiosity) over extrinsic motivations (financial incentives)

Tomorrow I’ll shift the focus to the practical question of how to conduct a successful sprint by looking at the role Trello plays.