Translations:Design sprint/3/en

No devices are allowed during the workshop (phone, laptop, tablet), except during breaks.

The five phases

1. Map and experts. The problem map and the Sprint Goal are drawn up. The team interviews internal experts to gather knowledge and perspectives. Notes are organized and prioritized on the map.
2. Individual sketches. Each participant works individually to generate solutions: first with "lightning demos" (existing solutions that can serve as inspiration) and then with their own sketches for specific parts of the map.
3. Decision. The team reviews all the sketches and chooses the best solution. The decider has the final say. A 15-scene storyboard is created for the prototype.
4. Prototype. A realistic but non-functional prototype is built: believable enough for users to react to it genuinely.
5. User testing. Five users test the prototype with an interviewer, while the team observes and takes notes in real time.

Design Sprint and AI tools

Generative AI is particularly accelerating the prototyping phase (day 4):

• Interface, text, and code generation tools can produce functional prototypes in hours, reducing the cost of this phase and enabling higher-fidelity prototypes.
• In the sketching phase (day 2), AI can be used to quickly generate visual or textual variants that serve as a starting point for individual ideation.

The value of the Design Sprint lies not in the speed of the prototype but in the quality of the decisions that precede its construction: the map, the expert interviews, and the informed choice of solution. Using AI to speed up prototyping without having done the previous phases properly produces a fast prototype that validates the wrong hypotheses.

Common mistake

Running the Design Sprint without the decider. The decider is the most critical role in the workshop: without someone with real authority to commit to the chosen direction, the sprint may produce a solution that is then never implemented because "it has to be checked first." If the decider cannot attend for five days, the Design Sprint is not the right format for that context.

Resources

🏦 Skill Design ThinkingState of the art and development guide · Skill Arena

🏦 Skill Agile InceptionState of the art and development guide · Skill Arena