Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky & Braden Kowitz · 2016
In a nutshell
A practical guide to the Design Sprint methodology created at Google, offering a unique five-day process for solving tough problems and testing new ideas quickly.
Overview
Sprint is a New York Times bestseller by Jake Knapp and former Google Ventures partners that presents a unique five-day process for solving tough problems, proven at more than a hundred companies.
The Core Concept
The Design Sprint was created at Google by Jake Knapp. The big idea is to build a prototype of your idea and test it with real customers. This method is like fast-forwarding into the future, so you can see how customers react before you invest all the time and expense of creating your new product, service, or campaign.
The Five-Day Process
In a Design Sprint, you take a small team, clear your schedules for a week, and rapidly progress from problem, to prototype, to tested solution using the step-by-step five-day process:
- Monday: Map out the problem and pick an important place to focus
- Tuesday: Sketch competing solutions on paper
- Wednesday: Make difficult decisions and turn your ideas into a testable hypothesis
- Thursday: Build a high-fidelity prototype
- Friday: Test it with real target customers
History and Authors
Originally created by Jake Knapp at Google in 2010, the Design Sprint has since been adopted by thousands of teams around the world. Jake Knapp is co-founder and general partner at Character Capital and a New York Times bestselling author who previously helped build Gmail and Microsoft Encarta, cofounded Google Meet, and was a partner at Google Ventures.
The book was co-authored with John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz, both also former partners at Google Ventures.
Impact
The Sprint methodology has been used by companies like Slack, LEGO, Blue Bottle Coffee, and the United Nations to solve critical business challenges quickly and effectively.
Available at major retailers for approximately $20-30.
Reference
Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days — publisher / official page. Summary adapted from the Awesome Startup Books collection.
If you like this, read
The Lean Product Playbook
The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback by Dan Olsen is a guide for startup founders on how to apply lean principles to product development, ensuring that products meet customer needs effectively.
The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback
Dan Olsen's hands-on guide to building products customers love, providing a repeatable process for achieving product-market fit using lean startup principles.
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
Eric Ries’s influential methodology book for startups, introducing concepts like validated learning, build‑measure‑learn loops, and minimum viable products (MVPs) to help founders systematically test ideas and reduce waste while building successful companies.
UX for Lean Startups
UX for Lean Startups shows founders and early-stage teams how to do effective user experience research and design with limited time and resources, aligning UX work with Lean Startup experimentation.
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
An international bestseller with over 1 million copies sold in 30+ languages, this book by Nir Eyal reveals the Hook Model—a four-step process used by successful companies to create habit-forming products that bring users back without costly advertising.
The Lean Entrepreneur: How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets
Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits provide a practical guide to combining customer insight with rapid experimentation. Essential for founders implementing Lean Startup methodology in their ventures.