Design Sprint

What It Is

A Design Sprint is a five-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing with customers. Developed by Jake Knapp at Google Ventures (now GV), it has been used by teams at Slack, Uber, Airbnb, LEGO, the New York Times, and hundreds of startups.

The core insight: Instead of debating ideas for months then building for months, compress everything into one week. By Friday, you'll have tested a realistic prototype with real customers and know whether you're on the right track.

A Design Sprint changes the defaults of how teams work:

• Instead of endless brainstorming: structured individual sketching
• Instead of design by committee: one Decider with authority
• Instead of building real products: realistic "fake" prototypes
• Instead of launching and hoping: testing with 5 target customers

When to Use It

Use a Design Sprint when: