Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

by Jake Knapp

Starting at the end is like being handed the keys to a time machine. If you could jump ahead to the end of your sprint, what questions would be answered? If you went six months or a year further into the future, what would have improved about your business as a result of this project?

“Why are we doing this project? Where do we want to be six months, a year, or even five years from now?”

Now it’s time to get pessimistic. Imagine you’ve gone forward in time one year, and your project was a disaster. What caused it to fail? How did your goal go wrong?

questions do we want to answer in this sprint? • To meet our long-term goal, what has to be true? • Imagine we travel into the future and our project failed. What might have caused that?

Some useful questions to ask: “What will make this project a success?” “What’s our unique advantage or opportunity?” “What’s the biggest risk?”

By asking people for their input early in the process, you help them feel invested in the outcome. Later, when you begin executing your successful solutions, the experts you brought in will probably be among your biggest supporters.

great innovation is built on existing ideas, repurposed with vision.

It’s like the thieves from Ocean’s Eleven watching the fountain after the heist, or Gandalf swooping in on a giant eagle to rescue Frodo and Sam. It’s amazing. It’s what work should be about—not wasting time in endless meetings, then seeking camaraderie in a team-building event at a bowling alley—but working together to build something that matters to real people.