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

by Jake Knapp

Get that surface right, and you can work backward to figure out the underlying systems or technology. Focusing on the surface allows you to move fast and answer big questions before you commit to execution, which is why any challenge, no matter how large, can benefit from a sprint.

turning these potential problems into questions makes them easier to track—and easier to answer with sketches, prototypes, and tests. It also creates a subtle shift from uncertainty (which is uncomfortable) to curiosity (which is exciting).

The common elements? Each map is customer-centric, with a list of key actors on the left. Each map is a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. And, no matter the business, each map is simple. The diagrams are composed of nothing more than words, arrows, and a few boxes.

Your final task on Monday is to choose a target for your sprint. Who is the most important customer, and what’s the critical moment of that customer’s experience?

When each person sketches alone, he or she will have time for deep thought. When the whole team works in parallel, they’ll generate competing ideas, without the groupthink of a group brainstorm. You might call this method “work alone together.”

You’ll start with twenty minutes to “boot up” by taking notes on the goals, opportunities, and inspiration you’ve collected around the room. Then you’ll have another twenty minutes to write down rough ideas. Next, it’s time to limber up and explore alternative ideas with a rapid sketching exercise called Crazy 8s. And finally, you’ll take thirty minutes or more to draw your solution sketch—a single well-formed concept with all the details worked out.

1. Art museum: Put the solution sketches on the wall with masking tape. 2. Heat map: Look at all the solutions in silence, and use dot stickers to mark interesting parts. 3. Speed critique: Quickly discuss the highlights of each solution, and use sticky notes to capture big ideas. 4. Straw poll: Each person chooses one solution, and votes for it with a dot sticker. 5. Supervote: The Decider makes the final decision, with—you guessed it—more stickers.

It’s not hard for creators to make great arguments for their mediocre ideas, or give great explanations for their indecipherable ideas. But in the real world, the creators won’t be there to give sales pitches and clues. In the real world, the ideas will have to stand on their own.

Talking out loud is risky. Humans are social animals, and when our natural impulses to discuss and debate take over, time disappears.

How do customers find out your company exists? Where are they and what are they doing just before they use your product?

Decisions take willpower, and you only have so much to spend each day. You can think of willpower like a battery that starts the morning charged but loses a sip with every decision (a phenomenon called “decision fatigue”).

How did publishers get it so wrong? Eight experts in children’s publishing turned Harry Potter down—and the ninth, Newton, only printed five hundred copies. But Alice, an eight-year-old, knew right away that it was “so much better than anything else.”

85 percent of the problems were observed after just five people.

Testing with more people didn’t lead to many more insights—just a lot more work. “The number of findings quickly reaches the point of diminishing returns,” Nielsen concluded. “There’s little additional benefit to running more than five people through the same study; ROI drops like a stone.” Instead of investing a great deal more time to find the last 15 percent, Nielsen realized he could just fix the 85 percent and test again.

A great series of context questions starts with small talk and transitions into personal questions relevant to the sprint. If you do it right, customers won’t realize the interview has started. It will feel just like natural conversation.

DON’T ask multiple choice or “yes/no” questions. (“Would you . . . ?” “Do you . . ?” “Is it . . . ?”) DO ask “Five Ws and One H” questions. (“Who . . . ?” “What . . . ?” “Where . . . ?” “When . . . ?” “Why . . . ?” “How . . . ?”)

The idea behind a broken question is to start asking a question—but let your speech trail off before you say anything that could bias or influence the answer.

Each of us has only so much time in a day, in a year, and in our lives. When you go to work in the morning, you should know that your time and effort will count. You should have confidence that you’re making a difference in real people’s lives.