Ready, Set, Sprint!

Today on Real-World Branding, we sat down with Gary Kopervas, SVP, Creative Strategy at Finch Brands. Take a listen as Gary dives into what Sprints are, how they work, and why more companies today are using sprints to accelerate key brand and business initiatives in the real-world. 

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Transcription:

Bill Gullan:

Greetings one at all. This is Real World Branding. I’m Bill Gullan, president of Finch Brands, a premier boutique brand consultancy. And thank you for joining us. Excited today to bring Gary Kopervas. Gary is the newly minted, at least a few months in SVP of creative strategy at Finch Brands, colleague of mine. It’s fun on the podcast to have clients and friends tell their stories. And it’s also fun to have colleagues on to do the same. And Gary is a legend, and you’ll hear a bit about his backstory and the role that he’s occupying at Finch Brands. And particularly we’re going to zero in on the main topic today, which is sprints, the power of design sprints, brand sprints, innovation sprints, as a way to galvanize growth and accomplish really large tasks in a short period of time.

Bill Gullan:

Sprints, as Gary will detail, it’s not just about doing things faster. We’ve always done things faster when clients needed them. And there’s sometimes everyone needs to scramble to do a heavy lift in a shorter period of time, but there are certain elements of a sprint methodology that really enable not only speed, but depth and texture and quality to chase those breakthroughs as Gary terms it for brands for businesses. And we’re really excited to leverage Gary’s expertise today. Enjoy.

Bill Gullan:

I am honored to have Gary Kopervas is the newly minted couple months now, SVP of creative strategy at Finch Brands joining us today, and just sort of a word about Gary. And I’ll ask you to introduce yourself, but we’re thrilled to have someone of this sort of caliber and track record join our team in a new position, SVP of creative strategy at Finch. Gary is tasked with really being a bridge between the strategic work that we do, which is obviously heavily influenced and fueled by insights and design processes. And for those who have worked in the agency or consulting realm for a while, they will likely recognize that as not only a potential workflow, but a comprehension choke point from time to time that bridge. And so our topic today, which is design sprints and strategy sprints is in some ways only made possible, I think, by not only someone of Gary’s capability, but a structure that enables these things to go quickly and effectively. So Gary, thanks for coming. Glad to have you.

Gary Kopervas:

Bill, thanks so much. And that is an awesome intro. And primarily because I don’t have to say anything. I mean, that was a really a great setup. But I think it does really set the framework for the conversation we’re going to have, which is the role that I’m in now, which is really exciting and the idea of a creative strategist. It does bridge and having some ability to take all that intelligence and all that rigor and turn it into creative strategies and creative executions, I couldn’t think of a more exciting role in expectations given where everything is at right now. And I think it really does a good job setting up our conversation today around this sprint idea. And anyone who’s listening right now is probably saying, “Sprint, oh man, not more sprint talk.”

Gary Kopervas:

We’ve heard it for a while now. And we could all blame it on Google. That’s what we do, but Google Ventures, maybe seven or so years ago developed the sprint methodology around the idea of bringing speed, the right people into the room, the ability to prototype, and getting consumers perspectives before an idea goes to market. And it was pretty inspired and they were using the sprint to deal with all the brands and businesses in their incubator. So once people started to see how expeditious it was and frankly really productive use of time and energy, it started to catch on and you started to see variations of it. And Google started, it was a five-day sprint to test the viability of an idea. And now it is more loosely used for any project that got speed and has an endpoint in mind that isn’t a year or six months in duration.

Gary Kopervas:

And it’s always funny that the conditions determine what works and what’s popular and right now it’s something we’ve heard a million times is COVID didn’t create change. It accelerated it. And this whole idea of acceleration now is companies are in need of methodologies that do not take forever and a ton of money to get traction, to get into market, and also to incorporate insights and the voice of consumer in such an endeavor because right now you really can’t and shouldn’t do anything without some perspective of a consumer.

Bill Gullan:

Yeah. Well, we’ve always felt that. That’s always been an article of faith at Finch. Before we get into sprints and your experience with it and sort of how you visualize it in our world, give us a little bit of your backstory and just sort of who Gary is and we’ve admired your work from afar for many years and it’s a fun thing-

Gary Kopervas:

Awesome. Thanks.

Bill Gullan:

… to be teammates, but talk a little bit about Gary.

Gary Kopervas:

Yeah, no, I certainly can. And just to that last point, it’s very exciting because I think one of the things that I have found is that when you get together with like-minded people and you see opportunities through the same lens, it’s very exciting. And that’s why I think my background was really one of starting at the agency level. My first job was out of school at Ogilvy in New York. And that was exciting, but was in the advertising world and agencies were doing traditional media things, wrote television commercials and print ads and radio. And it was an awesome experience. And then several others following that was still in the advertising game, which was traditional. And now we know agencies have been under fire for years, forcing them to change.

Gary Kopervas:

Well, I segued into new product development almost by chance and an opportunity came up and I went from writing television commercials into working with teams, developing new products. And that was when I really got a first taste of innovation and creating things that didn’t exist yet and talking to consumers and using empathy and close contact with consumers to figure out potential ideas and I really got hooked on that. And I think moving from probably 10 years of new product innovation into brand consultancy. Just because brands have become, is even pre-COVID, brands were getting very it’s critical to get your brand right. Many people were over the mind that it was time for brands to step up and we saw purpose and we saw a reason for being and many brands were shrugging.

Gary Kopervas:

Our reason for being is to make money as it had always been that. And we know that brands that are excelling and growing right now have figured it out a while ago is we have to figure out our purpose and figure out our reason for being, and then activate it across the entire enterprise. So that’s how brand consultancy, at least for me, became the work I was doing. And in some way, it all fits. Going from agencies and communications to creating new things, hopefully, that people wanted into now helping along with the Finch team, helping navigate the course that many brands are on, which is not an easy one right now. And it’s part of the fun.

Bill Gullan:

No doubt. So let’s talk about sprint. Let’s get into it. You talked a little bit about the sort of recent history of it. And we’ve served clients for several decades on varying timeframes. I mean, sometimes they need it fast and you gut it out and you get it fast. Sometimes the stakeholder management piece is complicated. And so it takes more time and it’s much more kind of episodic. Sprint, doesn’t to your point, just means speed. It isn’t about compressing the weeks into four, although that may be some element of it, but sprint implies certain methodological principles that enable you to go fast, get the right inputs, promote decisive behavior and progress. So who are the types of companies or what might be the types of needs or situations for which a sprint is the right approach?

Gary Kopervas:

Yeah. And just to pick up on a small point you made a moment ago was, yeah. I think people have been working fast forever and just from the agency world clients would come up and say, “When did you need it?” “I needed it yesterday.” And it was almost like a bit of a joke that everything had to be done fast. And sometimes when you’re asked to do something fast and the model and the methodology isn’t built for it, things get broken and things get done, but they often don’t get done well. The difference about sprint is somebody said, “You know what? If we could build speed and agility and creativity into a method that is in this case five weeks instead of five months or a year, everyone knows the expectation and it’s much more sequential.”

Gary Kopervas:

It’s really a step-by-step process. It’s not just hair-on-fire moments. It’s just not doing work fast towards a deadline where everybody’s winded and everyone’s unsure what we just made. This is a very deliberate and accelerated process by design, which I think that’s the inspired part about it is that now it’s a design element that people can get used to. And I think right now that why this is become so popular is the times we’re in again, is that whether it’s a big client, a small client, CPG, B2B, everyone now is growth-minded. Everyone is like, “We have to grow.” And the term that you’re hearing more about is companies, CEOs, and C-suites set a growth agenda. It’s like, “We must grow. This has to happen.” And the thing about it is it doesn’t often get spoken is you can’t do it with the old model.

Gary Kopervas:

I mean, we need growth, everything’s accelerated, and we need something in five weeks and not five months. And I think everyone has gotten used to that acceleration, but I think what’s great about this sprint model, particularly as we’ve decided to do it, not five days, which is frenetic, and not five months, but five weeks has been something that is accelerated but is still thoughtful. And we have the adequate steps in it where we could function at a speed, but not doing it hyper. And I think that’s pretty exciting. And I think companies now that are in need of growth, we’re finding … The throughline is companies are looking for a breakthrough. We need a breakthrough desperately. And sometimes that breakthrough could be a rebrand.

Gary Kopervas:

If you are say an M&A at your two or three companies coming together you need a breakthrough on how do we talk about ourselves? What is our brand architecture? How does all this stuff fit? And I think something that I’ve come to really like is when we, as a group discuss this about clients, we talk about it as clients having a moment and that moment could be pressure to find a throughline between several companies that have been merged how’s that going to work or our customers are moving away from us. We need a product or service that they find value in, and we can bring them back and start to create a customer experience that we have to in order to be successful. So that’s a moment. As well as even moments with … We work with the startups and with a company, maybe one to two, to maybe three years old, they finally realize we’re legit now and we’re a brand.

Gary Kopervas:

And that moment is oh my goodness, we’re a brand, but we don’t even know how to talk about it as a brand. So there’s three types of clients within companies that I think we see with some frequency. And the first one is really change agents in charge. A change agent in charge is someone who’s at the top or a group of people at the top who know what they want, and they need a team to help them. They need a team to work side by side with their team. They’re good with change. They want change. They want people to help them through a model where they can produce it fairly quickly. And then the next company that we often come, company style, we come in contact with is next levelers.

Gary Kopervas:

These are companies that realize we’ve been successful for a while. We’ve got through COVID and things are going okay. We need to find that next level. We need to figure out what is the next best version of ourselves? And that allows us to come in and go, “Okay, we’re going to go through the rigor of a sprint and help a next level, or figure out what that next level looks like.” And that’s very exciting, particularly, again, these are clients that know what they want, and they’re willing to play as a team. And then the third one often is marketers by default.

Gary Kopervas:

We often work with companies who have marketing leaders who often find their way into marketing through sales. I mean, they’re salespeople, R, and D people, HR people, and suddenly they’re tasked to put their marketing together and start to build a brand marketing plan. That’s a pretty heady thing and anxiety-producing. So we often serve as extensions of a marketing team and put a sprint together with a client’s team and help lead them through something. And that’s really important now, because I think essentially sprints need to have the trust and confidence of teams and clients that are willing to commit essentially.

Bill Gullan:

Right. Right. So what are the characteristics of a successful sprint in terms of inputs and outputs? You mentioned early on one of the great things about sprints, at least the way that they were practiced at Google was to bring consumers into the room. You also mentioned at least obliquely the need for both strategy and tactical elements. When you think about the Finch process that we’ve done and that you’re helping to sort of build and burnish, what are the core components of that in terms of inputs and outputs?

Gary Kopervas:

Yeah, no, that’s a great question that I’ve been wanting to get to, because I think it’s all this is leading up to, okay, what is a model or methodology that takes a lot of these things and actually makes it tangible for clients. And I think if we had to look at the three pillars of this sprint model that we’re talking about, it’s really built around real-life listening, real-time co-creation, and real-world validation. And the reason if you listen to that and go, “I’m getting the sense of reality in this and real, we’re real.” We often talk about it as helping brands thrive in the real world. A sprint gets very real, very fast. And that’s the part that’s most exciting for me is that if we want to truly help brands thrive in this real world that’s emerging in front of us, it has to have real-life listening.

Gary Kopervas:

And one of the things that I did admire is really Finch’s ability to get close to the customer through traditional means of in- depth interviews and focus groups and having those consumer conversations that are able to really elicit that intelligence that you need to build the foundation, but also the inside communities now, which is a pretty exciting prospect to be able to have ongoing relationships with consumers, to be able to find things out over time, it’s not just sort of a quick hit focus group. This is where you’re able to cultivate better learning and for a sprint to have that real-life listening and intelligence really frames the entire project. So we in some cases we would do triads of talking to three customers and all with the idea of planting sort of that framework for the sprint themselves.

Gary Kopervas:

So that real-life listening intelligence is very critical. But what that does do is just not done in isolation. It fuels the creative process. So if we’re able to extract learning and really truths, that goes into the creation of a brief because creativity sounds like a great thing, but if it’s not grounded in that consumer truth and having consumer voice being the impetus for it, you could run off into some wild directions that are not useful.

Gary Kopervas:

And when you are running a sprint, you do have a ticking clock and you want to be creative and you want to explore, but you need to be efficient about it. And having those insights are critical. So when we talk about real-time co-creation what it isn’t is a classic case of a creative team getting a brief and disappearing for several weeks and coming back with an idea and a client reviewing it real-time co-creation is we often brainstorm early on with clients, because oftentimes when we see and experience the consumer voice and insights together, we will often spend some time and brainstorm with clients directly.

Gary Kopervas:

We often co-create with our own team, and that’s the most natural way of brainstorming, but also in sprints. And it’s an interesting aspect is that sometimes you bring in external experts and if you’re working in a category where we have relationships with whether they’re subject matter experts or not. They’re just great minds to have in the room. The creative solutions are often broader and more unexpected. So the idea of co-creation for a sprint is not canned, and it’s not the same thing every time. And that’s the other thing to point out is a sprint such as the one we’re talking about, it’s customizable. I mean, if we have a particular challenge, we’d love to get the right people in the room. And I must say because I said it earlier is that the sprint is all about getting the right people in the room.

Gary Kopervas:

And that’s so important for the co-creation piece. Now, as we go through this, you develop multiple ideas and multiple solutions that you can get excited about, but in the sprint mode, we have to be able to find and get alignment around one. And once we develop that solution, we just don’t go to market with it. That is where it’s extremely valuable. And I’ve seen so many really important decisions made in the real world validation because you don’t want to just … It’s not focus grouping ideas, but if we have something we’re really excited about, we will do a reality check.

Gary Kopervas:

We will have some consumers, we will have some people from our audience that will be ultimately be a part of this message to just give us a look, a last blush of what of this idea is just to make sure that we haven’t been in an echo chamber and many times what we’ve gotten at the validation stage has really made it good into something really great, or gave us an opportunity that we maybe have overlooked, but when you pull these … and there were various steps that I didn’t go into detail about, but the idea of the empathy of the real-life listening, the creative energy of co-creation and the relevant of the reality check at the phase at the end of the phase really gives clients.

Gary Kopervas:

It gives our sprint team, a high level of confidence that what we’re taking out into the world is not just an ungrounded moonshot and I think that is a really important part of a sprint is that in this five-week period, you’re able to do a step by step process that they’re not isolated. It actually builds on the process and ultimately leads to a pretty, pretty compelling, and often breakthrough outcomes by virtue of the steps that you take with the people that you have in the sprint itself.

Bill Gullan:

Yeah.

Gary Kopervas:

It’s pretty exciting.

Bill Gullan:

No, it is. And just to distill some of the elements, I think that you mentioned, I’ve been part of sprints that are sort of more innovation-driven, where you use bounce and build other methodologies where you’re focused really on concepts. It sounds like what you’re describing is relevant to that certainly, but also in more brand incubation modes where you will, where this process will yield, brand strategy and positioning, consumer persona, and target, and then the sort of from top all the way downstream design outputs. And then it sounds like also two phases, if in certain cases of consumer input on the front end, consumers provide sort of unfocused, exploratory insight into pains and gains and needs often again with, with adjunct experts. And then the validation phase that you outlined is where consumers really pressure test the emergent ideas through the lens of whether or not it addresses their needs, whether or not it engages them. So you have exploratory and you have validation research in a package that’s very, very rapid.

Gary Kopervas:

Yeah. And you point that out and it is important to make a distinction. And I didn’t until now is that it’s not just a traditional focus group where it’s a pass-fail. It’s very iterative and collaborative with we’ll call it that the user groups and what have you. But I think it’s important to know too, is that when we get that the engagement with consumers on the front end is really all about finding inspiration through insights and intelligence. So we’re starting to develop divergent thinking. We want to get some truths and some intel from customers that can help us find some paths. Now, when we go through that process and on the back end of it’s not necessarily the inspiration piece that engagement with consumers is really about the execution.

Gary Kopervas:

Did we get it right? Is it clear? Is it compelling? And have we maintained the fidelity of the insight from the early phase in the actual work? And the thing about a sprint is when we have a fairly contained team, we are all part of the process. So we don’t hand off. And we don’t have just from my agency days where these people did this, they handed it off to this group, then they handed it off to this group and it would break down and take turns that people couldn’t explain, because it’s like, “How did that happen?” It’s like, “Well, they took the research and kind of went another direction.” I equate a good metaphor, like everyone else.

Gary Kopervas:

The thing about the sprint which is interesting for me, it’s really like … and we seen them at large games stadiums and 4th of July and with top gun now it’s on everyone’s mind is the notion of the blue angels. If you can imagine traditional marketing being like a battleship or aircraft carrier, where you just keep putting stuff on it and it goes. It doesn’t go fast and it doesn’t turn really well. But when you think about a sprint, it’s more of a blue angels scenario, which is small teams moving quickly in tight formation to a prescribed destination, very agile. But I love the idea of a sprint and a sprint team flying in that tight formation allows so many things to happen that don’t in traditional models.

Bill Gullan:

Right. Totally. I like the metaphor. So let’s make a list of things that are required or optimal for these sprints to be successful. I’ll start with some of the things that I think that you’ve already said, and then keep me honest, and then-

Gary Kopervas:

You bet.

Bill Gullan:

… add to it, and then add to it. So one thing, it has to be the right company at the right moment, the right leader. You indicated a couple of different profiles that we find to be predominant. And so presumably the person and the team that is authorizing the sprint needs to be in an authoritative position to be able to initiate something like this and then carry it out. That’s one that I heard. Another is that you want the sprintees, if you will, to be multidisciplinary, this is not a factory assembly line.

Gary Kopervas:

True.

Bill Gullan:

If we use brand as a topic here that would presumably be insights, strategy, and design, some-

Gary Kopervas:

Absolutely.

Bill Gullan:

… almost liberal artsy deployment of a-

Gary Kopervas:

I like it.

Bill Gullan:

… of a sprint team. Those are two. Another thing that you said was the consumer voice needs to be captured, managed, and filtered yet efficiently done. So those are three kind of success equation elements. What are some other things that really, really need to be present or need to be thought through for these sprints really to work?

Gary Kopervas:

I think it’s a great set you’ve put in place, and there are three things that come to mind, and these are three things that I have discovered. And I think in talking to our team, it’s really a through line for many companies. And that is there are three challenges to bringing breakthroughs to life and breakthroughs. I equate with sprints because that’s the intent of all sprints is to have some breakthrough, a tangible breakthrough, and three things stand in the way, and we could all relate. The first one is making time. I’ll give you all three. And then I’ll just spend a moment on each which is making time, making decisions and making progress.

Bill Gullan:

Right.

Gary Kopervas:

Those are three obstacles that get in the way of really any growth, but specifically with sprints is that when we work with clients, they have to make time because this is … a sprint is not a set in and forget it. I mean, back in the day, it’d be like we brief a creative team, or we brief an agency team and they’ll be back in four weeks and we’ll see what they’ve come up with. Clients need to make time to be a part of this. And it doesn’t need to be just ridiculous amount of time, but they need to feel a part of this. And it’s part of it’s about being an owner in this process. And whether it’s a CEO making some time to be available for part of it needs a core team on the client’s side to see this through.

Gary Kopervas:

And as we talk about it, it’s five weeks. So they have to make that kind of time. If you want to break through making time’s important, the other part, and you touched on it is having the right people in the room with authority and the ability to decide, make decisions is making decisions is that second challenge. How many times have we been in meetings around projects and we’ve left the meeting only with when we’re going to meet next. No decisions are made. And now in these steps of the course of five weeks, we built decisions into this. That’s why we must always have a decider in the room in order to get to the next phase. And that’s why five weeks seems like a pretty fast amount of time.

Gary Kopervas:

The only way to get that done is to sometimes hold feet to the fire is that we need a decision right now, and that’s really important. And the other one is really making progress is, and they’re related making time in order to make decisions and then progress. As you can imagine in five weeks, we have to make progress each week in order to reach the goal of that five week period where we’re ready to go to market with the breakthrough that we’ve done the due diligence. And it’s a great idea.

Gary Kopervas:

So really about making time making decisions and doing what it takes to make progress, it sounds obvious, but in full disclosure, some clients don’t. And you can’t expect something amazing out of a sprint like it’s a magic wand. If you don’t do those three things and clients that know that upfront commit to it. And that’s when they’re the most happy when this thing is done going, “I saw this, I grew this thing.” And that it’s having partnership and inclusion is incredibly important because honestly, I have seen that a company does this sprint effectively. It becomes a part of their method. Suddenly, you’re doing two, three, four a year or one a quarter because it gets so much done in a short period of time.

Bill Gullan:

Right. Right. Excellent. And as I think we implied or said directly sprints are not for everybody. There are certain organizations that because of the nature of their structure or their culture, this is not the right kind of lift for them. There are certain processes that by virtue of, and just speaking from the sort of consulting perspective, the stakeholder alignment isn’t conducive to this kind of activity. There are other organizations where they’d much rather have a partnership of having a team go off and study something while their business continues and then come back. There’s a lot of reasons why this may not work for some, but absolutely is a cool consideration for the types of companies that you outline.

Gary Kopervas:

Yeah. And that’s a great point because this is not to say that now Finch is in the sprint business exclusively.

Bill Gullan:

Yeah, sure.

Gary Kopervas:

No, it is just that there are projects, and thankfully so, of clients are like, “We need to take a more considered look because we need to go a little bit deeper and wider on some really important topics for the business.” But as I mentioned before, companies that need to drive growth in a shorter term need an option. And that’s what’s exciting is that I’ve admired the work that Finch has done you just from a brand development, brand architecture, which isn’t a five-week undertaking. But the ability to come to market was something that we see more and more working to give clients and honestly, teams within larger clients or startups an option. And I think it’s one that more companies are getting comfortable with and are doing a compliment of longer-term projects, deeper dives, if you will, complimented by the sprints.

Bill Gullan:

Yeah, totally. So it’s a good time probably to say that while we actually have been for a while based upon needs of clients, as well as what was right at the time, we never really told the world that we’re in the sprint business. And we are at Finch Brands. And one of the reasons why we can do so as confidently and excitedly as we can and as we do is because you’re here, Gary. And so we’re grateful not only for your partnership as a teammate, but for your time today on the podcast.

Gary Kopervas:

Man, Bill, I’ve been waiting for this day. Have a little-

Bill Gullan:

It’s everybody’s dream. Yeah.

Gary Kopervas:

Love talking shop with Bill. I’m thinking about that as a podcast. So we’ll have complimentary podcast.

Bill Gullan:

Absolutely.

Gary Kopervas:

I’m really looking forward to this work and helping clients do what they need to do using I think is a very cool tool.

Bill Gullan:

Excellent. Well, thank you for your time.

Gary Kopervas:

All right, Bill. Pleasure. Talk soon.

Bill Gullan:

Big thank you to Gary Kopervas. Excited to have him as a colleague and partner and friend here at Finch Brands. And as you heard, he has a tremendous passion for sprints as a methodology. And as a model, he’s also tremendously valuable in situations that we wouldn’t classify as sprints, but sort of longer-term, more complex business and brand-building initiatives. And so psyched to have him and thanks to Gary for his time. And insight three ways is always to support us at real-world branding. And I know our timing is sort of on and off. I think we’re going to hopefully settle back into a monthly cadence as we get through the summer and into the fall. But one way to make sure you don’t miss a single episode is to click subscribe in the podcast app or source of your choice, or if you’re viewing this on YouTube, same deal.

Bill Gullan:

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Bill Gullan:

And then related to that as the third way, which is to keep the dialogue going on, Twitter probably is best at Bill Gullan or at Finch Brands ideas for future shows, future guests, future topics. We are at your service. Absolutely. And part of the reason why we find this so enjoyable is because of that interaction. And because we get enough comments and suggestions and compliments sometimes if we deserve them, that it makes it worthwhile in addition to just sort of being fun, talking with really smart people about interesting things. So in that spirit, I hope everyone’s having a great summer. We’ll sign off from the cradle of liberty.