The Design Sprint was coined in Jake Knapp‘s book Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days from 2016. The five-day Sprint is an excellent approach to validate vague ideas about a product or problem and end up with something very specific and tangible. Although the process is both fun and ensures a huge buy-in from all participants, it does require a high level of commitment from stakeholders, which might be difficult to get.

Instead, have a look at the updated Design Sprint 2.0 process that shortens both the time needed overall and also lowers the amount of commitment from experts and decision-makers–or make up your own process. The initial two days are about ideation, storyboarding and pretotyping and should be consecutive, whereas the actual building of a prototype, testing and validation might very well be spread out to fit into people’s calendars. Remember to not be too ambitious on who to invite; one decider, one facilitator and a couple of Developers will get you a long way.