The Design Sprint

A practical guide to answering critical business questions, created by Google Ventures.

What is it?

A five-day structured brainstorm based on design thinking and agile development.

A quick introduction to the Design Sprint process.

How does it work?

Read the step-by-step instructions:

• The product design sprint: Setting the Stage
• Day 1: The product design sprint: Understand
• Day 2: The product design sprint: Diverge
• Day 3: The product design sprint: Decide
• Day 4: The product design sprint: Prototype
• Day 5: The product design sprint: Validate

Or watch the videos:

Playlist containing day-by-day instructions.

Why use it?

To answer critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers before launching a product or a feature of a product.

Who was it created by?

• Jake Knapp, GV
• John Zeratsky, GV
• Braden Kowitz, GV

Who uses it?

Read stories from the teams and companies running Design Sprints, published by Google Ventures:

Sprint Stories

How can I learn more about it?

From the source.

• Google Ventures:

The Design Sprint - GV

• Google Developers:

Design Sprint | Google Developers

• Product Design Sprint Playbook to help a sprint master lead their team through the sprint:

Read the book.

• Title: Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
• Purchase: buy from Amazon (Note: affiliate link).

“Read this book and do what it says if you want to build better products faster.” — Ev Williams, founder of Medium and Twitter

Watch a presentation.

Take a course.

• Name: Product Design by Google
• Description: This course is designed to help you materialize your game-changing idea and transform it into a product that you can build a business around. Product Design blends theory and practice to teach you product validation, UI/UX practices, Google’s Design Sprint and the process for setting and tracking actionable metrics. This course is part of Udacity’s Tech Entrepreneur Nanodegree Program.
• Price: Free
• Skill Level: Intermediate
• Duration: Approximately 2 months

Product Design | Udacity

Attend a meetup.

Design Sprint Meetups - Meetup

Resources.

Setting the Stage

• Checklist:

Sprint: Set the Stage

• How to set up the war room:

Google Ventures: Your Design Team Needs A War Room. Here's How To Set One Up

• Shopping list for sprint supplies:

Day 1

• Daily checklist for Monday:

Sprint: Monday

Day 2

• Daily checklist for Tuesday:

Sprint: Tuesday

• How to recruit customer for testing:

The GV research sprint: Start recruiting participants (day 1)

Day 3

• Daily checklist for Wednesday:

Sprint: Wednesday

• Schedule customers and draft interview guide:

The GV research sprint: Schedule participants and draft interview guide (day 2)

Day 4

• Daily checklist for Thursday:

Sprint: Thursday

• Finalize test schedule and complete interview guide:

The GV research sprint: Finalize schedule and complete interview guide (day 3)

Day 5

• Daily checklist for Friday:

Sprint: Friday

• Interview customers and summarize findings:

The GV research sprint: Interview participants and summarize findings (day 4)

General

• Tools to run design sprints:

Tools

• Get coaching email with a detailed checklist and video about the upcoming sprint exercises from the Sprint Bot:

Sprint Bot - Automated sprint coaching from the authors of Sprint

About this article.

This article is part of a series of articles guiding readers in exploring the many frameworks and methodologies in product management. You can browse all articles here:

I want to be a Product Manager when I grow up

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