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

Sprint is designed for teams of all sizes — from startups to global corporations — and even applies to education and non-profit sectors. This New York Times Bestseller is a practical guide for answering big questions quickly.

Created by Jake Knapp at Google and refined with Braden Kowitz and John Zeratsky at Google Ventures, the Sprint methodology helps teams break through indecision, reduce risk, and focus on rapid, validated learning.

Jake Knapp created the five-day process at Google, where sprints were used for everything from Google Search to Google X. He joined Braden Kowitz and John Zeratsky at Google Ventures and together they have completed more than two hundred sprints with startups in enterprise, e-commerce, healthcare, finance, climate, artificial intelligence and more.

What is a Design Sprint?

A Design Sprint is a structured five-day process where you move from a complex challenge to a tested prototype in under a week. It’s a framework built to accelerate problem-solving, collaboration, and product validation.

The power of speed and clarity

In just five focused days, you gather your team, define the problem, sketch solutions, build a realistic prototype, and test it with real users. It removes the friction of endless meetings and aligns everyone around what really matters.

Based on real-world experience

The authors have run hundreds of sprints in industries such as e-commerce, healthcare, finance, AI, climate tech, and more. They share case studies, tips, and techniques that allow any team to apply the method successfully.

The Five-Day Structure

Each day of the Sprint serves a clear purpose. Together, the five days help teams make rapid, informed decisions and reduce waste:

• Monday: Map the challenge and select a key focus
• Tuesday: Sketch ideas and explore possibilities
• Wednesday: Decide what to prototype and outline the flow
• Thursday: Build a realistic prototype
• Friday: Test the prototype with real users

This format is highly effective for cross-functional teams working on tight timelines and facing complex decisions.

Applicable to Any Team

Whether you’re a product manager, UX designer, strategist, or developer, the Sprint gives you a proven framework for making faster, smarter decisions. It works especially well when clarity is needed fast.

The approach is also useful when developing industry-specific solutions — for example, in the healthcare sector. At GlobalOrange, we’ve seen strong results applying Sprint techniques to SaaS solutions in healthcare, where stakeholder complexity and user needs often demand rapid iteration and early validation.

Design Sprints in Digital Product Development

Design Sprints are particularly valuable in digital product and SaaS development. They align teams quickly, reduce technical risk, and provide clarity on user value before writing a single line of production code.

For teams working with a dedicated software company like GlobalOrange, Design Sprints can act as the ideal kickoff to define direction, validate assumptions, and accelerate delivery. It’s the perfect balance between strategy and speed.