Monday begins with an exercise we call Start at the End: a look ahead—to the end of the sprint week and beyond. Starting at the end is like being handed the keys to a time machine. If you could jump ahead to the end of your sprint, what questions would be answered? If you went six months or a year further into the future, what would have improved about your business as a result of this project?
Even when the future seems obvious, it’s worth taking the time on Monday to make it specific, and write it down. You’ll start with the project’s long-term goal.
To begin the conversation, ask your team this question:
Why are we doing this project? Where do we want to be in six months, a year, or even five years from now?
Your goal should reflect your team’s principles and aspirations. Don’t worry about overreaching—this is the time to be optimistic! The sprint process will help you find a good place to start and make real progress toward even the biggest goal.
Add your ideas for the long-term goal in the table below. Feel free to add as many ideas as you want or play with different variations. This list won’t be shared with the group, so nobody has to worry about writing down dumb ideas.
Add idea
Long-term goal
Who
Long-term goal
Who
No results from filter
B. Self-edit
Review your list and pick one or two favorites by checking “keep”. Individually. Quietly.
Long-term goal
Who
Keep?
Long-term goal
Who
Keep?
No results from filter
C. Vote
Upvote your favorite ideas in the table below. Authors and upvote counts are hidden to reduce groupthink, and each person gets
2
votes.
Long-term goal
Upvote
Long-term goal
Upvote
1
Surpass 1k paying customers
2
Launch a mobile app
3
$1M in sales
4
Become the #1 Shopify plugin
5
Open 100 new locations in the U.S.
There are no rows in this table
Each person gets
00
2
votes
D. Share & capture
One at a time, each person says out loud their vote(s). A short sales pitch may be permissible, but no changing your vote!
One by one, select each participant below to share their vote(s).
Alan Chowansky
Long-term goal
Long-term goal
1
Launch a mobile app
2
Open 100 new locations in the U.S.
No results from filter
E. Decide
Who is the
@Decider
? She should make the final call — not the group. She can choose to respect the votes or not. The one item checked by the decider becomes your official long-term goal.
Bonus activity: high-level metric
We often write down a high-level Metric when we are running Design Sprints. It’s the same process as the Long-Term Goal, but instead of writing down a short sentence, you’re writing a number, like “20% of customers try the new feature.”