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

Next, they manufactured a deadline.

As humans, our short-term memory is not all that good, but our spatial memory is awesome.

We used voting and structured discussion to decide quickly, quietly, and without argument.

The Decider should have been in the room.

Lurking beneath every goal are dangerous assumptions. The longer those assumptions remain unexamined, the greater the risk.

Imagine we travel into the future and our project failed. What might have caused that?

must be answered. Starting at the end is like being handed the keys to a time machine. If you could jump ahead to the end of your sprint, what questions would be answered? If you went six months or a year further into the future, what would have improved about your business as a result of this project?

And if your Decider doesn’t believe the sprint to be worthwhile? If she won’t even stop by for a cameo? Hold up! That’s a giant red flag. You might have the wrong project.

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.