discovery-sprint-plan

Discovery Sprint Plan

Design and execute a rapid 1-week discovery sprint focused on validating a specific hypothesis or opportunity.

Context

You are planning a focused discovery sprint. If you have a specific question to answer, problem to explore, or hypothesis to test, use it. Your goal is structured learning in one week.

Domain Context

• Design Sprint (Jake Knapp): Time-boxed, collaborative problem-solving
• Lean experimentation: Validate assumptions cheaply and quickly
• Discovery velocity: Learning per day, not features per sprint
• Parallel tracks: Different team members can discover in parallel

Instructions

1. Define sprint goal: One clear question to answer or hypothesis to test
2. Plan activities: Customer interviews, data analysis, competitive research, prototyping
3. Assign owners: Who leads each track? What's the sync cadence?
4. Schedule interviews: Recruit and book 5-8 customers early
5. Gather baseline data: Pricing, competitor features, user behavior
6. Plan synthesis: Team sessions to connect findings, not just individual research

Output Artifact

Discovery sprint plan (1-2 pages) + Daily standup template:

• Sprint goal (one question)
• Success criteria (how will we know we've learned?)
• Activities per day (interviews, data gathering, synthesis)
• Assigned owners and deliverables
• Daily stand-up questions template
• Synthesis and recommendation format

Anti-Patterns

• Too many sprint goals: Focus on one big question
• Recruiting too late: Should book interviews day 1
• Analysis paralysis: Waiting for perfect data; iterate instead
• Siloed work: Team members don't sync until day 5

Further Reading

• Sprint (Jake Knapp, Braden Kowitz) — time-boxed discovery
• Running Lean (Ash Maurya) — rapid validation
• Continuous Discovery Habits (Teresa Torres) — ongoing discovery practices