Design Sprint Brief
Try it: /pm-skills:tool-design-sprint-brief "Your context here"
Produce the brief that aligns the team on challenge, sprint questions, participants, customer recruiting, prototype medium, interview format, logistics, and success criteria before Monday begins. A well-built brief prevents Monday morning from opening with re-litigation of “what are we testing this week?”; a missing or vague brief almost guarantees it.
Family contract: docs/reference/skill-families/design-sprint-skills-contract.md. This skill is a member of design-sprint-skills.
When to Use
Section titled “When to Use”- The readiness verdict from
tool-design-sprint-readinessis Go (or Conditional Go with preconditions cleared). - The sprint has dates blocked on calendars and you need the artifact that names what the sprint is for.
- The team has customer recruiting active and you need to commit a recruiting plan, honorarium budget, and Friday schedule before recruiting closes.
- A skeptical exec wants to know “what is the team doing for five days plus customer cost?” and you need an answer that fits on two pages.
When NOT to Use
Section titled “When NOT to Use”- The sprint has already started. The brief is a prep artifact, not an in-sprint deliverable. If Monday is happening, run
tool-design-sprint-map-and-targetinstead. - The readiness verdict is Wait. The brief cannot fix an unready team; close the preconditions first, then re-run readiness, then invoke this skill.
- The team wants a stakeholder strategy document. The brief is internal prep, not an external deliverable. If a stakeholder document is needed, that is a downstream artifact (the Friday scorecard or the next-step memo).
- Customer recruiting has not started. The brief locks the recruiting plan but cannot replace the recruiter. If no recruiter is named, go back to readiness Wait verdict.
How to Use
Section titled “How to Use”Invoke the skill by name (/pm-skills:tool-design-sprint-brief on Claude Code, $tool-design-sprint-brief on Codex):
/pm-skills:tool-design-sprint-brief "Your context here"Or reference the skill file directly: skills/tool-design-sprint-brief/SKILL.md
What This Skill Produces
Section titled “What This Skill Produces”A single bundled artifact with nine sections:
- Challenge statement and why-now: one paragraph naming the testable challenge and the urgency that justifies a sprint this week vs. later.
- Sprint questions: 2-4 specific questions the Friday testing answers. The highest-risk assumption from any prior Foundation Sprint becomes the lead question.
- Decider attendance windows: the load-bearing moments (Mon AM, Wed AM, Fri PM at minimum); fully blocked if available.
- Team roster with role assignments: who is in the room each day and what role each person plays through the week.
- Customer recruiting plan: target profile, source, count, incentive, recruiter owner, recruiting deadline, Friday schedule.
- Prototype medium decision: clickable, slideware, service role-play, paper, physical mock, or other; with rationale.
- Interview format: live or remote; moderated or unmoderated; recording and consent posture; observer-room setup.
- Logistics plan: dates, hours, location, format (in-person, remote, hybrid), tools, daily rhythm.
- Success criteria: observable outcomes that mark the sprint successful or not.
See references/TEMPLATE.md for the canonical structure and references/EXAMPLE.md for the Brainshelf book-catalog brief.
Inference Inputs
Section titled “Inference Inputs”| Input | What the skill does with it |
|---|---|
Readiness verdict and recommendations (from tool-design-sprint-readiness) | Pulls the recommended attendees, customer recruiting plan, pre-sprint activities, and prototype medium proposal; flags any precondition that has not been closed |
| Challenge description | Compresses into the Challenge Statement and derives 2-4 sprint questions |
| Founding Hypothesis (optional; from a prior Foundation Sprint) | The highest-risk assumption from the FS scorecard becomes the lead sprint question; the top bet becomes the design direction; the backup becomes the fallback decision if Friday invalidates |
| Team roster | Maps people to the required Design Sprint roles (Decider, Facilitator, PM, Design, Engineering, Researcher or Customer Expert); confirms 4-7 person band |
| Customer recruiting source and plan | Locks recruiter owner, target profile, source channel, honorarium budget, deadline, and Friday schedule |
| Format (in-person, remote, hybrid; per Ratified Decision 6) | Branches the brief body where format affects authoring: recruiting plan (in-person requires geo-local cohort; remote allows cross-timezone), prototype medium (some media work better in-person; e.g., physical mock), interview format (live vs remote moderated), observer setup (in-room vs Zoom breakout room) |
| Logistics constraints | Produces the dates/hours/location/tools matrix; flags any constraint that would force the sprint to extend beyond 5 days or split across calendar weeks |
Brief Length Discipline
Section titled “Brief Length Discipline”The brief MUST fit on two pages (or two screens). The DS brief is intentionally longer than the FS brief because the customer-recruiting, prototype-medium, and interview-format sections have no FS equivalent and must be committed to before Monday.
- Challenge Statement: one paragraph, four sentences maximum.
- Sprint Questions: 2-4 numbered questions, each one sentence.
- Team Roster: table with one row per person.
- Customer Recruiting: table.
- Prototype Medium: one paragraph including rationale.
- Interview Format: one paragraph.
- Logistics: table.
- Success Criteria: 3-5 bulleted outcomes.
If the brief expands beyond two pages, the sprint is being over-engineered before it starts. The fix is not a longer brief; the fix is sharper sprint questions and a clearer prototype medium decision.
Common Pitfalls
Section titled “Common Pitfalls”- Vague sprint questions. “Will users like it?” is not a sprint question. “Will 25+/year readers complete sub-3-second camera capture without abandoning?” is. Sprint questions must be answerable from Friday’s 5-customer interviews.
- Recruiting plan that does not match target customer. Recruiting from a panel that skews younger or different demographics than the named target produces Friday data that does not test the actual assumption. Cross-check recruiting source against the readiness customer profile.
- Skipping prototype medium decision. Leaving prototype medium to Thursday morning forces the team into ad-hoc choice and risks the prototype not being testable Friday. Lock it in the brief; if needed, change it after Wednesday’s storyboard but commit a default upfront.
- Treating the brief as a stakeholder deliverable. Stakeholders read the Friday scorecard and the Decider’s next-step memo, not the brief. Sharing the brief publicly invites pre-sprint debate, which the sprint is supposed to resolve.
- Logistics drift. “We’ll figure out remote vs in-person sometimes” telegraphs that the team has not committed. Either format is locked, or the readiness verdict was wrong.
- No interview format decision. Friday interview moderator, observation-room setup, and recording/consent posture should be in the brief. Forgetting these is the most common cause of Friday running long.
Canonical Sources
Section titled “Canonical Sources”- Knapp, J., Zeratsky, J., and Kowitz, B. Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. Simon and Schuster, 2016. Chapter 3 “Set the Stage” on sprint brief composition.
- Character Capital. “Design Sprint pre-sprint guide.” https://www.character.vc
- Google Design Sprint Kit. “Sprint brief template.” https://designsprintkit.withgoogle.com/
- AJ and Smart “Remote Design Sprint” template. Adapted for the remote and hybrid format sections.
Cross-Skill Usage
Section titled “Cross-Skill Usage”Prerequisites: tool-design-sprint-readiness. The brief expects the readiness output as its primary input. When prerequisites is honored, the brief inherits the readiness verdict, customer recruiting plan draft, attendee recommendations, and pre-sprint activities; the skill then refines and locks them.
If the team has done equivalent prep without running the readiness skill explicitly (e.g., experienced sprint facilitator who knows the readiness criteria), the brief skill can be invoked directly. In that case, the skill body prompts the team to confirm the readiness criteria are met before generating the brief.
A team coming from a Foundation Sprint should bring the Founding Hypothesis and assumption scorecard as inputs. The brief’s Sprint Questions section pulls the highest-risk assumption verbatim as the lead question. No bridge skill is required; the narrative handoff is documented in _workflows/foundation-to-design.md.
Next invocation in the sprint: tool-design-sprint-map-and-target on Monday morning.
Decider Checkpoint
Section titled “Decider Checkpoint”This skill ends with a Decider Checkpoint in references/TEMPLATE.md. The Decider signs off on scope (the challenge and sprint questions), team (the roster and attendance windows), recruiting plan (target profile, source, honorarium budget), prototype medium, interview format, and the explicit success criteria. Without sign-off, the brief is advisory; with sign-off, it is the contract for the next five days and the authorization for customer-recruiting spend.
Output Template
Section titled “Output Template”Design Sprint Brief: [Initiative or Challenge name]
Section titled “Design Sprint Brief: [Initiative or Challenge name]”Challenge Statement and Why-Now
Section titled “Challenge Statement and Why-Now”[One paragraph. Four sentences max. What is the team testing this week? Why does the answer matter? What would invalidation tell the team? Why this week vs. later (urgency, dependency on a downstream decision, market timing)?]
Sprint Questions
Section titled “Sprint Questions”[2-4 specific questions the Friday testing answers. If a Foundation Sprint preceded this sprint, the highest-risk assumption from the FS scorecard becomes Question 1.]
- [Question 1; canonical lead question; one sentence; answerable from 5 Friday interviews]
- [Question 2]
- [Question 3]
- [Question 4]
Decider Attendance Windows
Section titled “Decider Attendance Windows”| Window | Day(s) | Required for |
|---|---|---|
| Mon AM | [date] 09:00-12:30 | Map and Target; long-term goal, sprint questions, target moment |
| Wed AM | [date] 09:00-12:30 | Heat map, critique, supervote |
| Fri PM | [date] 14:00-18:00 | Decider observes interview slots 4-5 from breakout room; Decider review of Friday scorecard begins after last interview wraps 16:30; build/iterate/pivot/stop call by 17:30 |
| (Ideal) Full week | [date range] | All 5 days |
[Decider name]‘s confirmed availability: [state which windows are committed and any gaps]
Team Roster
Section titled “Team Roster”| Attendee | Role | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Name] | Decider | required | optional | required AM | optional | required PM |
| [Name] | Facilitator | required | required | required | required | required |
| [Name] | Design lead | required | required (sketch) | required | required (prototype build) | required (observation) |
| [Name] | Engineering lead | required | required | required | required (prototype build) | required (observation) |
| [Name] | PM or Researcher | required | required | required | optional | required (interview moderation) |
| [Name] | Customer expert / domain SME | required | optional | optional | optional | optional |
[Cameo experts, if any, listed separately with the specific session they attend.]
Customer Recruiting Plan
Section titled “Customer Recruiting Plan”| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| Target customer profile | [Specific enough to recruit against; cross-checked against readiness profile] |
| Source | [Primary and secondary channels] |
| Count needed | 5 (canonical; 6 confirmed for 1-buffer) |
| Incentive | [Honorarium amount; budget authorized] |
| Recruiter owner | [Name; responsible for scheduling Friday slots] |
| Recruiting deadline | [Date; canonically 7-10 days before Friday testing; must be past by brief sign-off] |
| Friday schedule | [Time blocks; canonical 6 slots Fri 09:00-15:00 with 1 buffer at 17:00] |
| Recording and consent | [Consent form template; recording policy; participant data retention] |
Prototype Medium Decision
Section titled “Prototype Medium Decision”Medium: [Clickable (Figma), slideware (Keynote), service role-play, paper, physical mock, other]
Rationale: [One paragraph: why this medium fits the challenge, who on the team has proven capability in it, how it constrains the sketch and storyboard work upstream, and what the medium does NOT need to do (the prototype is not the product).]
Build owners: [2 people from team; canonically Design + Engineering or Design + PM]
Build day: Thursday [date], target completion 17:00 [timezone] for Friday dry-run.
Interview Format
Section titled “Interview Format”Format: [Live in-person / Remote moderated / Remote unmoderated / Hybrid]
Moderator: [Name; canonically the Researcher or PM]
Observer setup: [Observation-room arrangement; Zoom waiting-room or breakout-room observers; sticky-note synthesis tool]
Script structure: Five-Act Interview (Welcome / Context / Intro / Tasks / Debrief). Tasks Act customized to the prototype; other Acts canonical.
Recording and consent: [Recording yes/no; consent form sent at recruiting time; data retention policy; redaction posture]
Sprint Logistics
Section titled “Sprint Logistics”| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| Sprint week | [Mon date] through [Fri date] |
| Hours | [start]:[end] each day |
| Location | [In-person address / Remote video / Hybrid with details] |
| Format | [Workshop with shared whiteboard / Pure remote / etc.] |
| Tools | [Whiteboard tool, video, decision log location, prototype tool, recording tool] |
| Daily rhythm | [Standup time, lunch, day-end review] |
| Non-sprint coverage | [On-call, Slack rerouting, calendar gating] |
Success Criteria
Section titled “Success Criteria”The sprint is successful if:
- [Friday produces a clear validation or invalidation of Sprint Question 1, with evidence from 5 customer interviews.]
- [Decider makes an explicit build / iterate / pivot / stop call by 17:30 Friday.]
- [Sprint Questions 2-4 have at least directional evidence from Friday.]
- [The team’s confidence in the underlying hypothesis or direction has measurably changed (up or down) from Monday morning.]
The sprint is unsuccessful if [the explicit failure conditions: Friday interviews do not complete due to recruiting failure, prototype is not testable on Friday, Decider call slips past Monday next-week, or scope drift forces the sprint to extend].
Decider Checkpoint
Section titled “Decider Checkpoint”Decider sign-off required before Monday begins (and before customer recruiting closes).
- Decider confirms challenge and sprint questions; questions are answerable from 5 Friday interviews.
- Decider confirms team roster and attendance windows.
- Decider authorizes customer recruiting plan, including honorarium budget.
- Decider confirms prototype medium and acknowledges the team will not over-invest in the prototype as if it were the product.
- Decider confirms interview format, recording, and consent posture.
- Decider confirms success criteria and acknowledges the sprint will produce a single build/iterate/pivot/stop call by 17:30 Friday.
- Decider acknowledges that recruiting cancellation or insufficient prototype scope must trigger a postpone decision rather than a slipped sprint.
Signed: [Decider name, role], [ISO date and local time]
Example Output
Section titled “Example Output”Design Sprint Brief: Brainshelf Camera-Capture Validation
Design Sprint Brief: Brainshelf Camera-Capture Validation
Section titled “Design Sprint Brief: Brainshelf Camera-Capture Validation”Locked Friday 2026-05-29 (3 days before sprint start). The Brainshelf team’s tool-design-sprint-readiness verdict was Go on 2026-05-15; Riley activated recruiting on 2026-05-16 and confirmed 6 customer slots by 2026-05-27 (two days ahead of the 2026-05-29 deadline). This brief locks the remaining decisions (sprint questions, prototype medium, interview format, success criteria) and authorizes the USD 600 customer-recruiting spend.
Challenge Statement and Why-Now
Section titled “Challenge Statement and Why-Now”Design and test a sub-3-second camera-first book-capture flow for 25+/year readers to determine whether they will switch from “do nothing” (paper journal, memory, or no system) to Brainshelf. The Founding Hypothesis from the 2026-05-14 Foundation Sprint depends on this assumption (A1 in the FS scorecard); if A1 invalidates Friday, the entire camera-first direction pivots to the Red Bookstore Mode backup. The team needs the answer this week to commit (or not) to a June 2 MVP build cycle that has a hard launch target of Q3 for a Brainshelf seed-round pitch.
Sprint Questions
Section titled “Sprint Questions”- Will 25+/year readers complete sub-3-second camera capture without abandoning, and is the resulting library something they describe as valuable for personal recall? (Tests FS assumption A1; lead question.)
- Does OCR + cover-recognition accuracy in the Figma prototype feel acceptable, or do mis-resolutions break trust? (Tests FS assumption A2 indirectly; full OCR test is post-sprint.)
- When asked “what would you pay for this and how often?”, do customers self-describe a sustainable price point above USD 4 per month? (Tests FS assumption A5; Friday Five-Act Interview Act 5 debrief.)
- Do customers describe “did I already read this?” as a frequent, painful problem? (Tests FS assumption A6; Friday Act 2 context question.)
Decider Attendance Windows
Section titled “Decider Attendance Windows”| Window | Day(s) | Required for |
|---|---|---|
| Mon AM | 2026-06-01 09:00-12:30 PT | Map and Target; long-term goal, sprint questions, target moment |
| Wed AM | 2026-06-03 09:00-12:30 PT | Heat map, critique, supervote |
| Fri PM | 2026-06-05 14:00-18:00 PT | Decider observes interview slots 4-5 from breakout room; Decider review of Friday scorecard begins after last interview wraps 16:30; build/iterate/pivot/stop call by 17:30 PT |
| Full week (ideal) | 2026-06-01 through 2026-06-05 | All 5 days, full attendance committed |
Jamie’s confirmed availability: all 5 days, full attendance, no calendar conflicts; backup investor calls rescheduled to 2026-06-08 afternoon.
Team Roster
Section titled “Team Roster”| Attendee | Role | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jamie | Decider, PM | required | required | required | required | required |
| Alex | Design lead | required | required (sketch lead) | required | required (prototype build co-owner) | required (observation) |
| Sam | Engineering lead | required | required | required | required (prototype build co-owner) | required (observation) |
| Riley | Customer expert + interviewer | required | required | required | optional (Riley is on call for prototype copy + customer-language polish) | required (Friday interview moderator) |
No cameo experts required. Riley acts as both customer expert (week-long context) and Friday interview moderator (her Discord-community familiarity gets the conversations going faster than a colder interviewer).
Customer Recruiting Plan
Section titled “Customer Recruiting Plan”| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| Target customer profile | Adults 25-55 who read 25+ books per year, treat personal library as memory rather than identity, currently use no system or paper journals; English-speaking; mix of US and international |
| Source | Primary: Riley’s book-blogger Discord (12k followers; warm intro). Secondary: UserInterviews paid panel filtered to “reads 25+ books per year.” |
| Count needed | 5 (6 confirmed for 1-buffer) |
| Incentive | USD 100 per 60-minute interview; budget USD 600 total (6 slots); authorized by Jamie 2026-05-15 |
| Recruiter owner | Riley |
| Recruiting deadline | 2026-05-29 (CLOSED; 6 confirmed slots locked 2026-05-27) |
| Friday schedule | 6 slots: 09:00 / 10:30 / 12:00 / 14:00 / 15:30 / 17:00 PT. Buffer slot 17:00 used only on earlier no-show. |
| Recording and consent | Zoom recording with audio + video; consent form sent at confirmation; 90-day retention; raw video deleted post-synthesis; quotes anonymized in any external sharing. |
Confirmed customer mix: 4 from Riley’s Discord (2 US, 1 UK, 1 Canada), 2 from UserInterviews panel (1 US, 1 Australia). All 6 self-identified as “25+/year reader who treats library as memory” via pre-screen DM.
Prototype Medium Decision
Section titled “Prototype Medium Decision”Medium: Clickable Figma prototype.
Rationale: The team needs to test the camera-capture interaction sequence (point camera, see recognition, confirm or correct, see book added) and the immediate post-capture personal-recall surface (search, browse “books I’ve read about X”). Figma can fake the camera surface and OCR resolution flow convincingly enough for a 30-minute task-based interview; a true OCR build is out of scope for one Thursday. The prototype is NOT the product: it tests interaction and recall framing, not engineering feasibility. Alex has built 3 Figma prototypes of comparable scope in the last 6 months; the medium is proven team capability.
Build owners: Alex (design lead) and Sam (engineering lead). Sam’s role on Thursday is to keep Alex unblocked on Figma constraints (component patterns, interaction logic) so the prototype completes by 17:00 PT for the Friday dry-run.
Build day: Thursday 2026-06-04, target completion 17:00 PT for Friday dry-run.
Interview Format
Section titled “Interview Format”Format: Remote moderated via Zoom + Figma screen-share.
Moderator: Riley.
Observer setup: Zoom breakout room for Jamie + Alex + Sam observing live; Miro sticky-note board for real-time observation synthesis; one observer designated note-taker per slot on rotation.
Script structure: Five-Act Interview (Welcome / Context / Intro / Tasks / Debrief). Tasks Act customized to the camera-capture flow and recall surface; other Acts canonical from Sprint book Chapter 17. Estimated 50 minutes per slot with 10 minute buffer for technical recovery.
Recording and consent: Zoom audio + video recording; consent form sent with calendar invite (DocuSign template based on Google Design Sprint Kit’s consent form); 90-day retention; raw video deleted post-synthesis Monday 2026-06-08; quotes anonymized in any external sharing or fundraising deck use.
Sprint Logistics
Section titled “Sprint Logistics”| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| Sprint week | 2026-06-01 (Mon) through 2026-06-05 (Fri) |
| Hours | 09:00 - 17:00 PT each day with 12:30-13:30 lunch |
| Location | Hybrid: Jamie + Sam in-person at Capitol Hill Coworking (Seattle); Alex + Riley remote on Zoom + Miro |
| Format | In-room whiteboard + shared Miro board mirroring the whiteboard; daily standup recapped in Miro for remote attendees |
| Tools | Miro (whiteboard), Zoom (video), Figma (prototype Thursday), GitHub Project board (decision log), Otter (interview transcripts) |
| Daily rhythm | 09:00 standup (15 min); 12:30 lunch; 16:30 day-end review (15 min); Slack silenced 09:00-17:00 |
| Non-sprint coverage | Sam: on-call coverage delegated to part-time contractor week of 2026-06-01. Jamie: investor pings async-only until Monday 2026-06-08. Alex + Riley: customer-success rerouted to no-coverage-needed auto-responses. |
Success Criteria
Section titled “Success Criteria”The sprint is successful if:
- Friday produces a clear validation or invalidation of Sprint Question 1 (the lead A1 question), with evidence from at least 4 of the 5 customer interviews (1-customer no-show tolerance).
- Jamie makes an explicit build / iterate / pivot to Red Bookstore Mode / stop call by 17:30 Friday 2026-06-05.
- Sprint Questions 2-4 have at least directional evidence from Friday (full validation deferred to post-sprint testing).
- Team’s collective confidence in the Founding Hypothesis (measured on a 1-10 scale Monday morning vs. Friday close) has moved at least 2 points in either direction (validation or invalidation; “no change” indicates the sprint did not actually test).
The sprint is unsuccessful if Friday interviews do not complete due to recruiting failure (more than 2 no-shows; buffer slot insufficient), if the Figma prototype is not testable on Friday (Thursday build slips past 18:00 PT and Friday dry-run cannot occur), if Jamie’s call slips past Monday 2026-06-08, or if scope drift forces the sprint to add a Saturday or extend into the following week.
Decider Checkpoint
Section titled “Decider Checkpoint”Decider sign-off required before Monday 2026-06-01 begins.
- Jamie confirms the challenge and sprint questions; questions are answerable from the 5 Friday interviews (6 confirmed slots; 1 buffer).
- Jamie confirms the team roster and attendance windows; all 4 attendees committed all 5 days.
- Jamie re-confirms customer recruiting plan and the USD 600 honorarium budget (originally authorized 2026-05-15 at readiness sign-off; recruiting closed 2026-05-27).
- Jamie confirms prototype medium (Figma clickable) and acknowledges the team will not over-invest in the Figma prototype; the prototype tests interaction and recall framing, not engineering feasibility.
- Jamie confirms interview format (remote moderated; Zoom + Figma screen-share; Riley moderator; Five-Act Interview script), recording (audio + video; 90-day retention), and consent posture (DocuSign at recruiting time).
- Jamie confirms success criteria and acknowledges the sprint will produce a single build / iterate / pivot to Red Bookstore Mode / stop call by 17:30 Friday 2026-06-05.
- Jamie acknowledges that recruiting cancellation cascade (more than 2 no-shows) or prototype slip past Thursday 18:00 PT triggers postpone, not slip-into-next-week.
Signed: Jamie (founder, PM), 2026-05-29 16:45 PT.
Brief locked. Sprint begins Monday 2026-06-01 09:00 PT.