We’ve found the ideal size for a sprint to be seven people or fewer.

• What questions do we want to answer in this sprint? • To meet our long-term goal, what has to be true? • Imagine we travel into the future and our project failed. What might have caused that?

The Decider must be involved in the sprint. If you, dear reader, are the Decider, clear your schedule and get in the room. If you’re not, you must convince the Decider to join.

The common elements? Each map is customer-centric, with a list of key actors on the left. Each map is a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. And, no matter the business, each map is simple.

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

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.

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. Blue Bottle

To start the conversation, ask your team this question: “Why are we doing this project? Where do we want to be six months, a year, or even five years from now?”

“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.