top of page
Writer's pictureAnderson Petergeorge

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

Overview

"Sprint" provides a practical guide for teams to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days. Developed by Jake Knapp at Google Ventures, the book outlines a structured process to help teams focus on critical tasks, rapidly prototype solutions, and gather customer feedback—all within a week. This method is designed for startups and large organizations alike, offering a streamlined approach to innovation and problem-solving that accelerates decision-making and reduces risk.


Notes

Monday (Day 1)

  • The ideal size for a sprint is seven people or fewer


Roles in a Sprint


  • Who makes decisions for your team? Perhaps it's the CEO, or maybe it's just the "CEO" of this particular project. If she can't join for the whole time, make sure she makes a couple of appearances and delegates a Decider (or two) who can be in the

    • Examples: CEO, founder, product manager, bead of design

  • Who can explain where the money comes from (and where it goes)?

    • Examples: CEO, CFO, business development manager

  • Marketing expert: Who crafts your company's messages?

    • Examples: CMO, marketer, PR, community manager

  • Customer expert" Who regularly talks to your customers one-on-one?

    • Examples: researcher, sales, customer support

  • Tech/logistics expert: Who best understands what your company can build and deliver?

    • Examples: CTO, engineer

  • Design expert: Who designs the products your company makes?

    • Examples: designer, product manager


  • Brad Pitt's character in Ocean's Eleven, Rusty Ryan, is the logistics guy.

    • He keeps the heist running. You need someone to be the Rusty Ryan of your sprint. This person is the Facilitator, and she's responsible for managing time, conversations, and the overall process. She needs to be confident leading a meeting, including summarizing discussions and telling people it's time to stop talking and move on. It's an important job. And since you're the one reading this book, you might be a good candidate.

  • The Facilitator needs to remain unbiased about decisions, so it's not a good idea to combine the Decider and Facilitator roles in one person.

    • It often works well to bring in an outsider who doesn't normally work with your team to be the Facilitator, but it's not a requirement.

  • Whiteboards are mandatory so everyone can be off their devices and focused. Have two big whiteboards

  • Monday's structured discussions create a path for the sprint week. In the morning, you'll start at the end and agree to a long-term goal. Next, you'll make a map of the challenge. In the afternoon, you'll ask the experts at your company to share what they know. Finally, you'll pick a target: an ambitious but manageable piece of the problem that you can solve in one week.

  • Start by asking: "Why are we doing this project? Where do we want to be six months, a year, or even five years from now?"

  • You imagined a perfect future. 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?

    • What 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 fails.

    • What might have caused that?


The Map


1. List the actors (on the left)

  • The "actors" are all the important characters in your story. Most often, they're different kinds of customers. Sometimes, people other than customers say, your sales team or a government regulator are important actors and should be listed as well. And sometimes, of course, there's a robot.


2. Write the ending (on the right)

  • It's usually a lot easier to figure out the end than the middle of the story.

    • Examples: Flatiron's story ended with treatment. Savioke's story ended with a delivery. And Blue Bottle's story ended with buying coffee.


3. Words and arrows in between

  • The map should be functional, not a work of art. Words and arrows and the occasional box should be enough. No drawing expertise is required.


4. Keep it simple

  • Your map should have from five to around fifteen steps. If there are more than twenty, it's probably too complicated. By keeping the map simple, the team can agree on the structure of the problem without getting tied up in competing solutions.


5. Ask for help

  • As you draw, you should keep asking the team, "Does this map look right?"




6. Ask the experts

  • Your team knows a lot about your challenge. But that knowledge is de-tributed. Somebody knows the most about your customers, somebody knows the most about the technology, the marketing, the business, and so on. In the normal course of business, teams don't get the chance to join forces and use all that knowledge. In the next set of exercises, you'll do exactly that.

  • Most of Monday afternoon is devoted to an exercise we call Ask the Experts: a series of one-at-a-time interviews with people from your sprint team, from around your company, and possibly even an outsider or two with special knowledge. As you go, each member of your team will take notes individually. You'll be gathering the information you need to choose the target of your sprint while gathering fuel for the solutions you sketch on Tuesday.


Strategy


  • Start by talking to the Decider. If the Decider is not going to be in the sprint the whole time, be sure she joins you on Monday afternoon. Some useful questions to ask: "What will make this project a success?" "What's our unique advantage or opportunity?" "What's the biggest risk?"


Voice of the Customer


  • Who talks to your customers more than anyone else? Who can explain the world from their perspective? Wendy is a prime example of a customer expert. Whether this person is in sales, customer support, research, or whatever, his or her insights will likely be crucial.


How Things Work


  • Who understands the mechanics of your product? On your sprint team, you've got the people building your product


Previous Efforts


  • Often, someone on the team has already thought about the problem in detail. That person might have an idea about the solution, a failed experiment, or maybe even some work in progress. You should examine those preexisting solutions. Many sprint teams get great results by fleshing out an unfinished idea or fixing a failed one. Savioke, for instance, had nearly all the pieces of their robot personality before the sprint but hadn't had the opportunity to assemble them.


1. Introduce the sprint


If the expert isn't part of the sprint team, tell her what the sprint is about.


2. Review the whiteboards


Give the expert a two-minute tour of the long-term goal, sprint questions, and map.


3. Open the door


Ask the expert to tell you everything she knows about the challenge at hand.


4. Ask questions


The sprint team should act like a bunch of reporters digging for a story.


Ask the expert to fill in areas where she has extra expertise. Ask her to retell you what she thinks you already know. And most important, ask the expert to tell you where you've got it wrong. Can she find anything on your map that's incomplete? Would she add any sprint questions to your list? What opportunities does she see? Useful phrases are "Why?" and "Tell me more about that."


5. Fix the whiteboards


Add sprint questions. Change your map. If necessary, update your long-term goal. Your experts are here to tell you what you didn't know (or forgot) in the morning, so don't be shy about making revisions.


How Might We

The method is called How Might We. It was developed at Procter & Gamble in the 1970s, but we learned about it from the design agency IDEO. It works this way: Each person writes his or her own notes, one at a time, on sticky notes. At the end of the day, you'll merge the whole group's notes, organize them, and choose a handful of the most interesting ones. These standout notes will help you make a decision about which part of the map to target, and on Tuesday, they'll give you ideas for your sketches.



Tuesday (Day 2)


  • On Monday, you and your team defined the challenge and chose a target. On Tuesday, you'll come up with solutions. The day starts with inspiration: a review of existing ideas to remix and improve. Then, in the afternoon, each person will sketch, following a four-step process that emphasizes critical thinking over artistry. Later in the week, the best of these sketches will form the plan for your prototype and test. We hope you had a good night's sleep and a balanced breakfast because Tuesday is an important day.


  • Our method for collecting and synthesizing these existing ideas is an exercise we call Lightning Demos. Your team will take turns giving three-minute tours of their favorite solutions: from other products, from different domains, and from within your own company. This exercise is about finding raw materials, not about copying your competitors. We've found limited benefit in looking at products from the same industry. Time and time again, the ideas that spark the best solutions come from similar problems in different environments.


Lighting Demos

  • Make a list: list of products or services to review for inspiring solutions

  • Give three minute demos

  • Capture big ideas as you go



Wednesday (Day 3)


  • By Wednesday morning, you and your team will have a stack of solutions. That's great, but it's also a problem. You can't prototype and test them all— you need one solid plan. In the morning, you'll critique each solution, and decide which ones have the best chance of achieving your long-term goal. Then, in the afternoon, you'll take the winning scenes from your sketches and weave them into a storyboard: a step-by-step plan for your prototype.


Thursday (Day 4)


1. You Can Prototype Anything


This statement might sound corny, but here it is. You have to believe. If you go into Thursday with optimism and a conviction that there is some way to prototype and test your product, you will find a way. In the next chapter, we'll talk about specific methods for prototyping hardware, software, and services. Those methods may work for you, or you may have to be resourceful and invent your own. But if you stay optimistic and adopt the prototype mindset, there is almost always a way.


2. Prototypes Are Disposable


Don't prototype anything you aren't willing to throw away. Remember:


This solution might not work. So don't give in to the temptation of spending a few days or weeks getting your prototype ready. You'll have diminishing returns on that extra work, and all the while, you'll be falling deeper in love with a solution that could turn out to be a loser.


3. Build Just Enough to Learn, but Not More


The prototype is meant to answer questions, so keep it focused. You don't need a fully functional product-you just need a real-looking façade to which customers can react.


4. The Prototype Must Appear Real


To get trustworthy results in your test on Friday, you can't ask your customers to use their imaginations. You've got to show them something realistic. If you do, their reactions will be genuine.


Friday (Day 5)


The Five-Act Interview

  • This structured conversation helps the customer get comfortable, establishes some background, and ensures that the entire prototype is reviewed. Here's how it goes:


  1. A friendly welcome to start the interview

  2. A series of general, open-ended context questions about the customer

  3. Introduction to the prototypes)

  4. Detailed tasks to get the customer to react to the prototype

  5. A quick debrief to capture the customer's overarching thoughts and impressions

5 Day Sprint Recap

Set the stage for

  • Choose a big challenge. Use sprints when the stakes are high, when there's not enough time, or when you're just plain stuck.

  • Get a Decider (or two). Without a Decider, decisions won't stick. If your Decider can't join the entire sprint, have her appoint a delegate who can.

  • Recruit a sprint team. Seven people or fewer. Get diverse skills along with the people who work on the project day-to-day:

  • Schedule extra experts. Not every expert can be in the sprint all week. For Monday afternoon, schedule fifteen- to twenty-minute interviews with extra experts. Plan for two to three hours in total.

  • Pick a Facilitator. She will manage time, conversations, and the overall sprint process. Look for someone who's confident leading a meeting and synthesizing discussions on the fly. It might be you!

  • Block five full days on the calendar. Reserve time with your sprint team from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.

  • Book a room with two whiteboards. Reserve a sprint room for the entire week. If it doesn't have two whiteboards in it already, buy some or improvise. Book a second room for Friday's interviews.


Key Ideas

  • No distractions. No laptops, phones, or iPads allowed. If you need your device, leave the room or wait for a break.

  • Timebox. A tight schedule builds confidence in the sprint process.

  • Use a Time Timer to create focus and urgency.

  • Plan for a late lunch. Snack break around 11:30 a.m. and lunch around 1 p.m. This schedule maintains energy and avoids lunch crowds.


Monday

  • Start at the end. Start by imagining your end result and risks along the way. Then work backward to figure out the steps you'll need to get there.

  • Nobody knows everything. Not even the Decider. All the knowledge on your sprint team is locked away in each person's brain. To solve your big problem, you'll need to unlock that knowledge and build a shared understanding.

  • Reframe problems as opportunities. Listen carefully for problems and use "How might we" phrasing to turn them into opportunities.


Facilitator Tips

• Ask for permission. Ask the group for permission to facilitate. Explain that you'll try to keep things moving, which will make the sprint more efficient for everyone.

• ABC: Always be capturing. Synthesize the team's discussion into notes on the whiteboard. Improvise when needed. Keep asking

"How should I capture that?"

• Ask obvious questions. Pretend to be naive. Ask "Why?" a lot.

• Take care of the humans. Keep your team energized. Take breaks every sixty to ninety minutes. Remind people to snack and to catch a light lunch.

• Decide and move on. Slow decisions sap energy and threaten the sprint timeline. If the group sinks into a long debate, ask the Decider to make a call.


Tuesday

  • Remix and improve. Every great invention is built on existing ideas.

  • Anyone can sketch. Most solution sketches are just rectangles and words.

  • Concrete beats abstract. Use sketches to turn abstract ideas into concrete solutions that can be assessed by others.

  • Work alone together. Group brainstorms don't work. Instead, give each person time to develop solutions on his or her own.

  • Recruit Customers for Friday's Test

  • Put someone in charge of recruiting. It will take an extra one or two hours of work each day during the sprint.

  • Recruit on Craigslist. Post a generic ad that will appeal to a wide audience. Offer compensation (we use a $100 gift card). Link to the screener survey.

  • Write a screener survey. Ask questions that will help you identify your target customers, but don't reveal who you're looking for.

  • Recruit customers through your network. If you need experts or existing customers, use your network to find customers.

  • Follow up with email and phone calls. Throughout the week, make contact with each customer to make sure he or she shows up on Friday.


Wednesday

  • Don't drain the battery. Each decision takes energy. When tough decisions appear, defer to the Decider. For small decisions, defer until tomorrow. Don't let new abstract ideas sneak in. Work with what you have.


Thursday

  • Prototype mindset. You can prototype anything. Prototypes are disposable. Build just enough to learn, but not more. The prototype must appear real.

  • Goldilocks quality. Create a prototype with just enough quality to evoke honest reactions from customers.


Friday

  • Never skip the user interviews or all the work will be for nothing

Comentários


bottom of page