Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky & Braden Kowitz

Author:Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky & Braden Kowitz [Knapp, Jake]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2016-03-08T04:00:00+00:00

Make honest decisions

Sometimes when people work together in groups, they start to worry about consensus and try to make decisions that everybody will approve—mostly out of good nature and a desire for group cohesion, and perhaps in part because democracy feels good. Well, democracy is a fine system for governing nations, but it has no place in your sprint.

Earlier in the book, we told you about our mistake with SquidCo: not including the Decider in the sprint. A few weeks later, we had a sprint with a company we’ll call OstrichCo.I We had learned our lesson about Deciders, so OstrichCo’s founder and CEO, Oscar, joined us for the entire sprint.

On Wednesday, it came time for OstrichCo to choose ideas. “You know, this is something we should all decide together,” said Oscar. “We’re a team.” Everybody felt great, and everybody voted. The solution the team chose wasn’t Oscar’s favorite, but it performed well in Friday’s test. The sprint was a success. Or so we thought, until we talked to Oscar a couple of weeks later.

“Yeah . . .” Oscar rubbed the back of his head. He looked bashful. “I thought about it some more and, uh . . . decided to go in another direction.”

“Let me guess,” said John. “You went with your favorite idea from the sprint.”

“Well,” said Oscar. “Yeah.”

During the sprint, Oscar had succumbed to camaraderie. He wanted to let the team make the decision. But the idea the team chose wasn’t the idea Oscar was most excited about. Later, after the prototyping and testing were over, he reverted to his normal method of decision-making—and now OstrichCo was committed to Oscar’s untested idea.

So who screwed up here? It wasn’t just Oscar. It was all of us in the sprint, because we let him cede his authority. The lesson of OstrichCo is to make honest decisions. You brought your Decider into the sprint room for a reason, and right now, more than at any other moment, you need the Decider to do her job.

Of course, being the Decider isn’t easy. Many of the startup CEOs we talk to feel the pressure of having to make the right decisions for their companies and teams. In the sprint, those Deciders get plenty of decision-making assistance. Between the detailed sketches, the collective notes, and the just-completed straw poll, the Deciders should have everything they need.

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