Design sprints for teams

What Is a Design Sprint?

A design sprint is a flexible product design framework that serves to maximize the chances of making something people want. It is an intense effort conducted by a small team where the results will set the direction for a product or service. It takes elements from the design process, the scientific method, and wraps them with an agile philosophy.

A design sprint consists of five discrete phases:

0.	Prepare (Get ready)
1.	Understand (review background and user insights)
2.	Diverge (brainstorm what’s possible)
3.	Converge (rank solutions, pick one)
4.	Prototype (create a minimum viable concept)
5.	Test (observe what’s effective for users)
6.	Iterate...to another design sprint, or a Lean and Agile build process such as Scrum or Continuous Delivery/Extreme Programming

A design sprint reduces the risk of downstream mistakes and generates vision-led goals the team can use to measure its success. For the purposes of this lesson, we’ll focus on digital products, as our direct experience lies in that arena, though the design sprint has roots in gaming and architecture,¹ and many industries have employed them successfully.

Uses of a Design Sprint

There are many ways to utilize a design sprint; one way is to look at which stage of development the project is in. Are you at the beginning and need to understand a wide array of unknowns? Or are you looking at a mature product that has been on the market for a while?

At the beginning of a project

You might use a design sprint to initiate ...