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

Get that surface right, and you can work backward to figure out the underlying systems or technology. Focusing on the surface allows you to move fast and answer big questions before you commit to execution, which is why any challenge, no matter how large, can benefit from a sprint.

First, the sprint forces your team to focus on the most pressing questions. Second, the sprint allows you to learn from just the surface of a finished product.

Before the sprint begins, you’ll need to have the right challenge and the right team. You’ll also need time and space to conduct your sprint.

On Monday, you’ll map out the problem and pick an important place to focus. On Tuesday, you’ll sketch competing solutions on paper. On Wednesday, you’ll make difficult decisions and turn your ideas into a testable hypothesis. On Thursday, you’ll hammer out a realistic prototype. And on Friday, you’ll test it with real live humans.

The sprint gives our startups a superpower: They can fast-forward into the future to see their finished product and customer reactions, before making any expensive commitments.

It’s a “greatest hits” of business strategy, innovation, behavioral science, design, and more—packaged into a step-by-step process that any team can use.

The sprint is GV’s unique five-day process for answering crucial questions through prototyping and testing ideas with customers.

“It’s our mission,” he said, “to find the best entrepreneurs on the planet and help them change the world for the better.” I couldn’t resist.

An important part of this exercise is rephrasing assumptions and obstacles into questions.