Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

This book is a must read for all those aspiring Product Managers out there. However, if you are not a reader and would like to save some time then here is the summary of the most important points from this book.

Overview

• The Design Sprint is a five-day process for solving problems and testing new ideas.
• Invented at Google by Jake Knapp, perfected with more than 150 startups at GV, then shared with the world in the bestselling book Sprint.
• Sprint allows you to go from zero to prototype in just five days and figure out if your idea is worth creating faster than ever.

3 elements of Sprint

• Have a tight deadline: This helps to reduce procrastination significantly. Usually, sprint should last for 5 days
• Get people with different skill sets in one room: Engineers, product managers, designers, marketers, accountants, managers etc. help in giving different perspectives to a problem. Ideally, 7 people from different background is good enough.
• Build a concrete prototype as an outcome: Having something functional that can be tested with customers to get real time user reactions and feedback.

The 5 day process

Key takeaways

• Test the prototype instead of building the product first
• Set long term goals, prioritise the tasks, and create a map involving major tasks excluding the nuances
• Four step sketch: Take notes on goals, write down rough ideas, rapid sketching exercise (Crazy 8s), and finally draw a solution sketch
• Narrow down a solution to prototype from a stack of solutions sketched on Wednesday
• Instead of taking weeks, months, or, heck, even years building that solution, you’re going to fake it. In one day, you’ll make a prototype that appears real
• Friday, you’ll take it one step further as you interview customers and learn by watching them react to your prototype

This is my first ever post on medium. Hope you found it useful :)