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

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

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

To meet our long-term goal, what has to be true?

Your map should have from five to around fifteen steps. If there are more than twenty, it’s probably too complicated.

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

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.

On Monday, she can share her perspective on the problem. On Wednesday, she can help choose the right idea to test. And on Friday, she should stop by to see how customers react to the prototype.

“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.