Sprint

In Sprint, Jake Knapp codifies the five-day design sprint process he developed while working at Google Ventures, distilled from his earlier experience leading design efforts at Google and Microsoft. The book, written with John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz, is a practical manual for solving big problems and testing new ideas in one week, originally aimed at startups but widely adopted across industries. The core framework is a structured Monday-through-Friday schedule: Monday maps the problem and picks a target; Tuesday sketches competing solutions through techniques like "Crazy Eights" and "Solution Sketch"; Wednesday decides which ideas to pursue using a "sticky decision" and storyboarding; Thursday builds a realistic prototype; and Friday tests it with five real customers in one-on-one interviews. The book emphasizes the role of a "Decider" (often a founder or executive) to break ties, and a "Facilitator" to keep the team on track. It introduces distinctive tools such as the "Lightning Demos" to draw inspiration from other products, the "Four-Step Sketch" to generate ideas individually rather than by committee, and the "Five-Act Interview" to make customer feedback reliable. A recurring case study involves Savioke's Relay robot and a coffee-shop chain, showing how a sprint validated a delivery concept. Knapp also addresses common failure modes like "groupthink" and "analysis paralysis," arguing that time-boxing forces clarity and reduces risk. Rather than abstract theory, the book offers step-by-step checklists, scripts, and supply lists, making the sprint reproducible for teams of any size. It falls under Art & Design because it treats design as a disciplined, collaborative problem-solving method rather than a solitary creative act.