Sprint

Generating ideas is crucial, as it is too easy to get bogged down by long-term projects that are based on questionable hypotheses. Sprint is a structured method that allows us to analyse specific problems and test new ideas quickly and thoroughly.

This method gives us the chance to “travel into the future”, envisioning the end product and the reactions of target customers before committing our money. When a risky idea succeeds in a sprint, the financial return is extraordinary. However, the most important thing is to identify failures, even if they are painful: to work with maximum efficiency means to detect deficiencies in five days.

How the sprint is organized: on Monday a problem is identified and we choose the topic our team will focus on. On Tuesday, possible solutions are suggested and “drawn”. On Wednesday the best solution is chosen, one that can turn into a testable hypothesis. On Thursday, a realistic prototype is created, which will be tested by real (or potential) clients on Friday.

The bigger the challenge, the better the sprint: if we are about to start a project that might take months —or even years— to develop, the sprint is the perfect launching point. More than anything, it is useful to test the relationship between the project and the customers: new ideas tend to fail because we take it for granted that the clients understand them. We must create the right alignment between the client and our ideas so that we’ll be able to reverse-engineer them and become aware of what must be developed.