sprinting from google

In 2016 a design partner from Google Ventures (GV), Jake Knapp, released a book called Sprint. The book introduced the idea of Design Sprints, a concept that had existed within Google for several years and was a mainstay in the toolset employed by GV with their portfolio of companies.

The beauty of Jake’s book is that it is very specific, there is even a 15-page checklist for when you are running your own Design Sprints. This however did not stop a swathe of folks from appropriating the name, but not the core ideas. What this in turn meant is that acts were being committed under the name of Design Sprint but were not even remotely close to what Jake describes in Sprint.

In this episode we dive into what Design Sprints really are, address their detractors and we visit the enterprise giant, Aus Post, where they ran 4 sprints in 5 weeks.

Many thanks to HeyDesigner for helping us share this episode.