What “Sprint” covers

You may have heard this title thrown around in UI/UX circles before, and for good reason. Sprint essentially encapsulates the methods which Google Ventures uses to prototype, test, and validate proposed solutions, but compressed into a very short period of time.

This title promises to teach you and your team how to discuss, define, concept, create, and test a product prototype, all within five days.

A tall order, no doubt, and while Sprint is not absolutely air-tight, it does offer a methodology that can really take your prototyping efforts to the next level.

How “Sprint” can help you

It can be dangerously easy to get lost in design hell and mired in the depths of a complex product.

The methods described in Sprint can help you shave weeks if not months off of your design and prototyping time, allowing your team to test with prospective users early, often, and to get feedback quickly, before it becomes costly to implement.

My honest review

Overall, I would say that sprint is a pretty darned good title, and you would be hard-pressed to find a better framework for rapid prototyping and testing out in the wild.

The good

Sprint offers a five-day plan to take your next idea from concept to testing, garnering feedback from real users, which you can then incorporate into your next design cycle.

The bad

The unfortunate downside about Sprint is that the process requires absolute laser focus from your product team that you’ve assembled to tackle the prototyping & testing process.

While this can work for some organizations, I can definitely tell you from experience that it will certainly not work for every organization, especially ones that are already running lean, or have team members that wear a lot of hats.

The bottom line

I give Sprint a solid 4/5.

I think it offers a lot in terms of actionable steps that you can take to get the answers you’re looking for, but at a cost of focus-time and team dedication that may not mesh well with your organization’s needs.

Still, the process that Sprint prescribes can be adapted to various time-frames, and more time can be set aside for the different steps and aspects that it encompasses when working in a team-based environment.

The methods in Sprint especially shine when you are a UX team of one who is charged with ideating, designing, testing, and validating product concepts quickly and with minimal resources.

Why you may want to check it out

If you’re a solo UI/UXer at your organization, you may really want to consider checking out Sprint. I won’t lie to you, it’s a pretty meaty book at 300 pages, so if you’re looking for a quick summary, you can find one here.

And why you may want to skip it

That said, if you’re a UI/UXer on a dedicated product team, you probably already have a standard method that you like to use in your design lifecycle, so you can more than likely safely skip this title altogether and just keep doing what you’re doing.