Adesign sprint is a time-constrained, five-phase process that usesdesign thinking with the aim of reducing the risk when bringing a new product, service or a feature to the market. The process aims to help teams to clearly define goals, validate assumptions and decide on a product roadmap before starting development.[1] It seeks to addressstrategic issues using interdisciplinary expertise, rapidprototyping, andusability testing. This design process is similar toSprints in anAgile development cycle.[2]
There are multiple origins to the concept of mixingAgile andDesign Thinking. The most popular was developed by a multi-disciplinary team working out of Google Ventures. The initial iterations of the approach were created by Jake Knapp, and popularised by a series of blog articles outlining the approach and reporting on its successes within Google. As it gained industry recognition, the approach was further refined and added to by other Google staff including Braden Kowitz, Michael Margolis, John Zeratsky and Daniel Burka.[3][4]
It was later published in a book published by Google Ventures called"Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days"..
The term “Design Sprint” became globally popular after Jake Knapp’s 2016 book, but it is not the only — nor the first — published sprint methodology. In 2014, Brazilian service designer Tenny Pinheiro released"The Service Startup: Design Thinking Gets Lean"., introducing the Service Design Sprint: a structured sprint method grounded in Service Design and Lean Startup principles. While Knapp’s approach grew from Google Ventures’ internal work (2010–2012) and focused on rapid product prototyping, Pinheiro’s method targeted holistic service innovation. These are two separate evolutions of the sprint idea, and both deserve recognition.
Claimed uses of the approach include
The creators of the design sprint approach, recommend preparation by picking the proper team, environment, materials and tools working with six key 'ingredients'.[8]
The main deliverables after the Design sprint:
The suggested ideal number of people involved in the sprint is 4-7 people and they includethe facilitator,designer, a decision maker (often aCEO if the company is astartup),product manager,engineer and someone from companies core business departments (Marketing, Content, Operations, etc.).
Theconcept sprint is a fast five-day process for cross-functional teams to brainstorm, define, and model new approaches to business issue.[10][11] Another common variant is theService Design Sprint, an approach to Design Sprints created in 2014 that usesService Design tools and mechanics to tackle service innovation.