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You’ll be watching some Friday’s test, and you’ll see people understand your idea, believe it will improve their lives, and ask the interviewer how to buy it.
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Time and time again, the process brings teams together and brings ideas to life.
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That’s one of the best aspects of a sprint: It gives you an excuse to work the way you want to work, with a clear calendar and one important goal to address.
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Longer hours don’t equal better results. By getting the right people together, structuring the activities, and eliminating distraction, we’ve found that it’s possible to make rapid progress while working a reasonable schedule.
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Even though we’re total tech nerds, we’re believers in the importance of starting on paper.
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The sprint gives our startups a superpower: They can fast-forward into the future to see their finished product and customer reactions, before making any expensive commitments.
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We all want a flash of divine inspiration that changes the world—and impresses our teammates. But amazing ideas don’t happen like that.
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To start the conversation, ask your team this question: ‘Why are we doing this project? Where do we want to be six months, a year, or even five years from now?
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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.
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Focus groups are plagued by the worst of group dynamics: shy people not talking, loudmouths talking too much, sales pitches, and a group-formed opinion that doesn’t reflect anyone’s honest feelings.
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The storyboard removes all guesswork about what to include. The solution sketches are packed with specific text and details.
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Whether you’re taking a risk on a bold idea, or you’re just not sure, it’s better to find out early. Wasting time on the wrong thing is a major bummer.
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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.
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Focus on the learning you gain from the prototype, not just on getting it perfect.
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Identifying critical flaws after just five days of work is the height of efficiency. It’s learning the hard way, without the ‘hard way.
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If you don’t first slow down, share what you know, and prioritize, you could end up wasting time and effort on the wrong part of the problem.
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Working together with our startups in a sprint, we shortcut the endless-debate cycle and compress months of time into a single week.
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If you’re familiar with lean development or design thinking, you’ll find the sprint is a practical way to apply those philosophies.
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Everyone will have had a chance to be heard, and everyone will understand how the decision was reached.
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When a risky idea succeeds in a sprint, the payoff is fantastic. But it’s the failures that, while painful, provide the greatest return on investment.
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Citation: Knapp, J., Zeratsky, J., & Kowitz, B. (2016). Sprint: How to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days. Simon & Schuster.
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