A five-day process for answering big business questions by mapping, sketching, deciding, prototyping and testing with real customers
Five days to an answer
Teams often spend months debating an idea before anyone finds out whether customers want it. Jake Knapp created the design sprint at Google and refined it at Google Ventures, running it with dozens of start-ups. With co-authors John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz, he lays out a step-by-step plan that takes a team from a big question to tested answers in a single week.
Who will enjoy it
Product managers, designers, founders and team leaders who want to make faster, better decisions and test ideas before investing months of work.
What you will get
A practical step-by-step guide to the five-day design sprint, a structured method for turning big questions into tested answers by prototyping and talking to real customers.
Sprint Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Nonfiction · Design sprint · Product teams · Prototyping
Length
288 pages · ≈ 8 h
More about this book
The book is organised day by day. Monday maps the problem and picks a target. Tuesday is for sketching competing solutions individually. Wednesday the team decides which ideas to pursue. Thursday it builds a realistic prototype, and Friday it watches five real customers use it. Each step includes checklists, schedules and roles, so a team can follow along almost like a recipe.
What makes it more than a manual are the case studies, including a coffee company planning an online store, a hotel robot and a medical start-up, which show how sprints play out in practice. The authors are especially persuasive on the value of working alone together, avoiding endless group brainstorms, and on putting a decision-maker in the room.
The method requires clearing a whole week for several busy people, which is not always realistic. Some sections repeat themselves. But for teams stuck in debate, it is a clear and energising playbook. The writing is friendly and practical, with plenty of illustrations and sample schedules, and even teams that never run a full sprint can borrow individual exercises. About 288 pages in the Simon and Schuster hardcover.
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Don't Make Me Think, Revisited
The Mom Test
Hooked
Logo Design Love
Why We Sleep
The Art of War
Etiquette
Getting to Yes
All Joy and No Fun
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption