Design Sprint: Create a Great Product Prototype in 5 days!

Explore Google's five-day design sprint to rapidly develop a prototype and test it with users, using mapping, sketching, and brainstorming to decide on a single MVP-driven solution.

Identify the right moments to run a design sprint by applying it to new product ideas, big features, hackathons, team offsites, and cross‑company collaborations, all within a five‑day framework.

Design sprint roles mirror agile scrum: a decider (product owner), a scrum master facilitator, and a team of developers, designers, qa engineers, and managers.

Examine pros and cons of design sprint, including gathering insights, framing the problem for a customer segment, and delivering a tested prototype within a week to assess product market fit.

Adopt a product manager perspective by running a five-day design sprint with stakeholders in one room, delivering a universal, agreed MVP and minimizing context switching.

Decide the design sprint topic, gather research and numbers to brief the team, and prepare a PowerPoint with competitor analysis and sticky notes.

Align participants on the day one problem, goals, agenda, and hybrid rules, then review research and competitors with swot to frame a first user story using the heart framework.

Apply the H.E.A.R.T framework to evaluate user experience with five metrics—happiness, engagement, adoption, retention, and task success—using a goal-signal-metrics matrix to measure impact.

Day two focuses on ideation, where diverse teams brainstorm numerous solutions using techniques like crazy eights and translate top ideas into user journey storyboards.

Vote on leading storyboards, apply sanity checks against problem and vision, then narrow to one prototype storyboard; document assumptions and design principles, refine with experts, and organize teams for development.

Decide who builds the prototype—interactive, mock-up, or MVP—then demo it within the five-day sprint to test assumptions, validate problem solving, and remember it's not an MVP.

On day five, the final day of the design sprint, researchers observe testers using the prototype, gather feedback with open-ended questions, and consolidate findings on sticky notes before presenting.

Decide the next steps for your verified prototype within the design sprint by creating an epic, ordering a second sprint, or pursuing additional exploration, using PR templates for backlog-ready notes.

Run your own design sprint to prototype a product in five days, selecting projects like elderly-friendly smartphones, smart trash cans, or automated birthday wishes, with collaborative teams.

Learn to run a design sprint to create a great product prototype in five days, understand its benefits, drawbacks, and roles, and contribute to others’ work via the Discord community.