Design Sprint is the product of the 'Design Thinking' philosophy/mindset. Think of it as a recipe from a cuisine style. Design Sprint: - is a structured, iterative workshop protocol used to solve complex business problems (aka "wicked problems") and validate new ideas and solutions. From creating Apple’s first mouse to improving patient experiences in healthcare, - solves problems that affect your business and results, right here and now. It's a great way to encourage creativity and bring cross-functional teams together and new ideas to live, - is designed to attain critical business goals, with a clear step-by-step process. It can be applied to all kinds of marketing - or business critical issues, at all sorts of organizations (and it's conquering the world!). This co-creative process helps teams rapidly prototype and test new solutions/ideas amongst stakeholders and end-users to determine their potential for success. Conducted in just 4 (or 5 if needed) days time rather than lingering on and traveling through an organization for months (or sometimes even years). It was developed at Google Ventures (GV), by the famous Jake Knapp, to support and drive success (and revenues) of the Google invested start-up eco-system (e.g. Uber, Slack, Nextdoor, Nest). ​ If you: have big questions about what the best course of action is for your business in terms of products/services/strategy, want to validate new ideas fast before you invest time and money in building new products or services, are looking for a problem-solving framework that will help your team work better together and be better aligned, then the 4-day Design Sprint is an effective, fast and cost-efficient way to get there! ​ Through intentionally designed exercises, multiple stakeholders are included in the idea development process, creating personal investment in the solution, leading to less mis-alignments and misunderstandings.

Working Together Alone (removing personal biases and levelling the playing field) Tangible (ideas) over Discussion Getting Started over Being Right Don't rely on creativity So, whether you’re a business leader, an educator, a healthcare professional, or just someone looking to improve their problem-solving skills, consider incorporating Design Thinking into your toolkit.

Typically, a Sprint workshop exists of 7-8 team members, coming from different relevant expertises, like marketing, sales, finance, designers, consumer experts, and a product owner or CEO ('The Decider') with decision mandate. ​ The 5 steps in the Design Sprint are: 1) Immerse/empathize, understand, 2) Problem definition, 3) Ideate & vote ideas/solutions, 4) Prototype winning idea(s)/solution(s), 5) Test winning idea(s) with end-users or stakeholders. Each of the five steps represents a workshop-day with a morning - and an afternoon program with different types of exercises. So a weeks time to work through the process of understanding the ins and outs of the problem, ideate and sketch solutions, decide on the winning idea(s) and then prototype and finally validate the winning solution(s).