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

by Jake Knapp

Everybody has a superpower. A unique strength. For software engineers, it’s writing code. For marketers, it might be designing campaigns. For us, it’s putting sticky notes on whiteboards. There’s one skill that you’re especially good at, and you probably feel most productive when you’re doing that one thing.

It’s tempting to disband the sprint group on Friday and let everyone return to his or her superpower.

Luckily, the solution to all these problems is simple: Watch the interviews together. It’s much faster, because everyone is absorbing the results at once.

Your conclusions will be better as a group, since you have seven brains working together. You’ll avoid problems of credibility and trust, because each sprinter can see the results with his or her own eyes.

On Monday, you came up with a list of sprint questions. These are the unknowns that stand between your team and your long-term goal. Now that you’ve run your test and identified patterns in the results, it’s time to look back at those sprint questions.

Maybe the best part about a sprint is that you can’t lose. If you test your prototype with customers, you’ll win the best prize of all—the chance to learn, in just five days, whether you’re on the right track with your ideas.

Many companies want to launch quickly so they can get data from hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people. That large-scale data is great. But in the rush to get there, it’s easy to miss the opportunity to gather small-scale data early, when there’s still time to course-correct.

When you get into a regular rhythm of listening to customers, it can remind you why you’re working so hard in the first place.

In these moments, it’s like Mission Control cheering when the Apollo 13 module safely splashes down in the Pacific. It’s like the thieves from Ocean’s Eleven watching the fountain after the heist,

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. This is the best use of your time. This is a sprint.

Liftoff

It’s easy to think of the Wright brothers as otherworldly historic figures whose famous flight was an unparalleled work of genius. But as a reader of this book, you might recognize the methods and hard work that got them off the ground.

The Wright brothers started with an ambitious, practically crazy goal. At first, they didn’t know how to get there.

They found existing ideas by researching kites and hang gliders, observing birds, and studying boat propellers. Then they combined, remixed, and improved.

For the next few years, they made progress by staying in a prototype mindset. One step at a time, they isolated challenges and broke through obstacles.

Along the way, they crashed. A lot. But each time, they used a new prototype purpose-built to answer one specific question.

Sound familiar? The Wright brothers didn’t use sprints to invent the airplane. But they used a similar toolkit. And they used it, and used it, and used it. Forming a question, building a prototype, and running a test became a way of life.

Sprints can create those habits in your company. After your first sprint, you might notice a shift in the way your team works. You’ll look for ways to ...

You’ll look for ways to answer big questions, not someday, but this week. You’ll build confidence in one another’s expertise and in your collective abili...

we shouldn’t be embarrassed to have ambitious goals at work. 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.

Throughout the book, you learned a handful of unconventional ideas about how to work faster and smarter:

Instead of jumping right into solutions, take your time to map out the problem and agree on an initial target. Start slow so you can go fast.

Instead of shouting out ideas, work independently to make detailed sketches of possible solutions. Group brainstorming is...

Instead of abstract debate and endless meetings, use voting and a Decider to make crisp decisions that reflect your team’s priorities. It’s the wi...

Instead of getting all the details right before testing your solut...

And instead of guessing and hoping you’re on the right track—all the while investing piles of money and months of time into your ideas—test your prototype with target customers and get their honest reactions.

Checklists

In the following pages, you’ll find checklists for every part of your sprint. (You can also find these lists at thesprintbook.com