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Design sprint agenda template · Day 1

Eight hours. A goal, a map, one circle. Sketches wait.

A design sprint agenda for Day 1 is a spine, not a slide review. Nine to five. Eight to ten product people who will sit the whole week. One named Decider. You leave with a long-term goal, the questions that could kill it, a map that fits on one board, and a single target. If you need lightning demos and sketches, that is Tuesday.

Title. Design sprint Day 1: understand and map.

When. 9:00–5:00. Same room all week. Doors at 8:50. If someone cannot stay the full day they are not on this team for the week — reset the chairs before Monday.

Who. One Decider who can circle a target without a committee. A facilitator. The people who actually ship. No gallery. No drive-by executives after 9:00. Experts: two before lunch, three after, Decider last.

Outcomes. A long-term goal as one sentence the Decider will still recognize in two years. Five to seven sprint questions, answerable by Friday. A one-board map: actors on the left, success on the right, 5–15 steps. How Might We notes clustered, top piles boxed. A target the Decider circled: one customer and one moment — the only thing Day 2 may sketch.

Materials. Three boards: GOAL / QUESTIONS, MAP, HOW MIGHT WE. Yellow stickies. One sharpie each. Three vote dots each. Visible timer. Bowl for phones. Printed expert order. Research dump on paper. One scribe laptop; everyone else closed. Camera.

The eight-hour spine

Clock Min Mode Segment
9:00 20 Talk Opening
Day 1 is understand and map. Named Decider. Phones in the bowl. Fifteen seconds: what would make this week a waste.
9:20 40 Activity Long-term goal
One sentence. Not a feature. Decider writes the final line on the GOAL board.
10:00 35 Activity Sprint questions
Can we / Will they. Five to seven tripwires, answerable by Friday.
10:35 15 Break Morning break
Water. No hallway solutions. Back in the chairs for the map.
10:50 55 Activity Map the challenge
Current world. Actors, 5–15 steps, a happy ending. No UI. No future product.
11:45 45 Demo How Might We, then first experts
Show the note format once. Two lightning talks. Room writes the whole time.
12:30 45 Break Lunch
Leave the room if you can. No table-side sprint. Afternoon starts without a recap.
1:15 60 Discussion Ask the experts
Three remaining experts. Ugly numbers. Decider last so they do not set the weather.
2:15 40 Activity How Might We on the wall
One problem per sticky. Place around the map. No speeches.
2:55 15 Break Afternoon break
Stand. Do not cluster in a corner. Vote and target when you sit.
3:10 40 Activity Organize and vote
Silent cluster. Three dots each. Box the top piles. Losers are context, not a backlog.
3:50 45 Discussion Pick the target
Decider circles one customer and one moment. Then the circle stands.
4:35 25 Talk Close
Read the boards. Photograph. No Slack thread of solutions tonight.

20 + 40 + 35 + 15 + 55 + 45 + 45 + 60 + 40 + 15 + 40 + 45 + 25 = 480. That is the whole day. Lunch is inside the eight hours. Sketches are not.

How each block earns its minutes

9:00 · Opening · 20

Say. This is Day 1 of a five-day sprint. We end at 5:00. We are not sketching today. We are not voting on solutions. By 5:00 we will have a long-term goal, a list of questions that could kill it, a map that fits on one board, and a target: one customer and one moment. If you brought a deck of answers, leave it closed. I keep time. The Decider makes the hard calls. Phones in the bowl. Fifteen seconds each: what would make this week a waste of eight people’s time. One sentence. No preamble, no solution.

Do. Collect phones (3). Write DAY 1 / UNDERSTAND / MAP and END 5:00. Point at the named Decider (4). Visible timer: 15-second round, one pass, scribe onto a side list — no stacking (8). Last 5: they copy the sentence into the workbook. 3+4+8+5=20. Do not start the goal.

On their page. What would make this week a waste. One sentence. The sentence I will not let us paper over.

9:20 · Long-term goal · 40

Frame the test (5). Silent write eight, one sentence. Each person reads in forty-five seconds — cut at 45, ten minutes total. Strike weasel words out loud: users, simpler, better, platform. Argument twelve — only on the sentence. Decider rewrites one line on the GOAL board, reads it twice, five. 5+8+10+12+5=40. Good: “A warehouse manager trusts next week’s inventory number without a human reconciling it.” If you cannot say it in one breath, you do not have a goal.

10:00 · Sprint questions · 35

Frame Can we / Will they (5). Silent write six, one question per sticky. Place and cluster duplicates, ten. Kill anything that needs a quarter or a research program. Decider stars 5–7, ten. Rewrite each as Can we / Will they on the board next to the goal, four. 5+6+10+10+4=35. These are tripwires, not research themes. If a question cannot be answered by Friday, it does not go on this board.

10:35 · Morning break · 15

Write the return time in giant numbers. Break up any side design meeting by the coffee. If the Decider starts a private strategy huddle, walk them back: we draw that on the map, with everyone. Clear a full board for MAP. Phones stay in the bowl. No chair page.

10:50 · Map the challenge · 55

Draw ACTORS → STEPS → SUCCESS (5). Silent eight: each person lists actors and 5–8 steps on paper. Harvest at the board, facilitator holds the marker, twenty-five. Cap at 15 steps. Park feature ideas on a side board without debate. Read the map once left to right, photograph, twelve. Last five: confirm you can say the spine in one breath. 5+8+25+12+5=55. The map is the current world. It has no UI on it.

11:45 · How Might We, then first experts · 45

Demo three HMW notes from the map — pain, not feature — and hand yellow stickies plus a sharpie each (8). Run exactly two inside experts at 12 minutes plus 3 of questions, 15 each = 30. Last 7: one more sample rewrite if the room is still writing dashboards. 8+30+7=45. You write the whole time. I will cut anyone who starts pitching a build. Do not squeeze a third expert into this block.

12:30 · Lunch · 45

Eat. Leave the room if you can. Do not hold a side sprint at the table — the quiet people will lose, and you will spend the afternoon undoing it. Text the three afternoon experts the start time. Be in the chairs at the time on the board. We start without a recap.

1:15 · Ask the experts · 60

Three remaining experts at 12 plus 3 questions = 15 each, 45. Scribe only facts that surprise the room onto a FACTS strip under the map. Cut pitches. Decider last, 12. Last 3: one breath of silence, then stop. 45+12+3=60. Experts tell you what is true, including the ugly numbers. The room is mining, not designing.

2:15 · How Might We on the wall · 40

Frame the rewrite test (5). Silent rewrite ten. Everyone stands and places notes near the map step they belong to, fifteen. No speeches. Toss any sticky that still names a UI widget. Photograph the wall before the break, ten. 5+10+15+10=40. One problem per sticky. If it names our product, rewrite it around the customer job.

2:55 · Afternoon break · 15

Stand. Get water. Do not cluster the How Might We notes in a corner with two people — that is a vote you did not earn. Set out three vote dots per person. Remind the Decider privately: after the vote they still pick the target, and they should say if they will override.

3:10 · Organize and vote · 40

Silent cluster 12. Name each pile in 3–5 words, 8. Three dots per person, 60 seconds, then count out loud, 5. Box the top 2–4 clusters, 10. Photograph before anything moves, 5. 12+8+5+10+5=40. Vote for the How Might We you want this sprint to attack, not the one that sounds virtuous. Everything else stays on the wall as context. We do not turn losers into a backlog.

3:50 · Pick the target · 45

Frame the two marks (5). Two-minute cases from the room, timer per person, no stacking — cap at 16 even if someone is still queued. Decider stands at the map, draws a circle around one actor and one step, reads both aloud, 15. Write TARGET: CUSTOMER / MOMENT / DECIDER, 6. Sit in ten seconds of silence. If someone objects, they get one sentence; then the circle stays. Photograph, 3. 5+16+15+6+3=45. Not three moments. Not the whole journey. Tomorrow you sketch only this.

4:35 · Close · 25

Read the boards slowly, 8. Twenty seconds each: restate the target customer and the moment, 6. Photograph every board. Confirm Day 2 start time and the lightning-demo homework (two existing products), 8. Hand phones back, 3. 8+6+8+3=25. End at 5:00. Do not start a Slack thread of solutions tonight. Do not take “one more opportunity” onto the map.

If the map runs long, you still take lunch. You steal from How Might We on the wall, not from the target. A Day 1 that skips the circle is a research offsite with better catering. Sketches on Day 1 are how you lock in the solution you walked in with.

What does not belong on this spine

Pre-work, in one paragraph

Forty minutes, on paper, before they walk in: three facts from the last 90 days that still bother them (a number, a lost deal, a support thread, a customer quote), the customer they think you are actually serving this week — role and context, not “users” — and the solution deck stays in the folder. If they cannot stay the full day, they say so before you print the chairs. The letter is in the workshop pre-work email guide.

After 5:00: the long-term goal, the sprint questions, the target customer and moment, the boxed How Might We clusters, board photos. Leave the stickies up until Wednesday. Day 2 is lightning demos and silent sketching. The letter is in the workshop follow-up email guide.

Places ships this day as a kit: timed segments, say-this, do-this, the workbook prompts, the emails. Open it, put your Decider’s name in, print the paper.

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