The Vision Sprint in a nutshell: what is it and what are its four phases

A lot has been said and written, mostly corporate and abstract definitions, about what a vision really is. To us, a vision is an ambitious and forward-looking view an organisation has on how to tackle a problem or seize an opportunity. Creating a vision is crucial for organisations because it mobilizes and unites every member in pursuit of a clear future. A solid future vision is the foundation that products, services or experiences with a lasting and great impact are built upon: many of us are familiar with how visions from the Wright brothers, Apple and Google have changed the world.

I help organisations create ambitious future visions through our strategic product design approach, in what I call a Vision Sprint. Vision Sprints shake up industries by challenging what is out there and seeking new ways of approaching things. They’re about leading the way to something new, about provoking organisations to push their ambitions, about identifying and seizing new opportunities with a solution. In turn, this solution becomes an organisation’s new future vision. Using our methodology, we help organisations focus on the inspiration, design, validation and change management of their vision.

Read our introduction to the Vision Sprint for an in-depth dive into what future visions are, what they should look like, and why you should (re)create them.

The four phases of a Vision Sprint

Although the official ‘sprint’ of a Vision Sprint only takes a week, the entire process is a weeks-long marathon (average of 4–8 weeks) due to the amount of preparation and after-work required to convert the results into action. The sprint can be divided into four key phases: preparation, inspiration, the official sprint, and post-sprint follow-up.

1. Preparation phase

You’ve heard it before and it surely applies here, but preparation is key. After all, diving into a Vision Sprint without proper preparation will only end in chaos. The preparation phase begins in the first meeting with your client, wherein the focus is to understand and listen to the client’s needs and problems. The next crucial step is to establish the Vision Sprint domain, which will give the sprint focus and direction.

Once a domain has been established, the next task is to plan and form the sprint team members. This is usually accomplished through discussions with the client as you decide together what roles should be included in the sprint and who has the capacity to dedicate at least 3 full days to attend the sprint. The last part of the preparation phase is to host a kick-off with the sprint team members to elaborate on the purpose of the Vision Sprint and manage their expectations by elaborating on the upcoming process and what each member will need to do.

Further details and our top tips on approaching the preparation phase can be found here.

2. Inspiration phase

A vision can’t be created without inspiration, direction or some proper research. The inspiration phase follows a traditional diverging and converging pattern to fulfil all these aspects, making it an imperative part of any Vision Sprint track. The process starts with digesting, synthesizing and processing as much readily available design expertise and secondary research to provide the sprint team with inspirational insights and resources. The goal is not only to establish a clear picture, but to deconstruct the whole context in preparation to design a new vision.

The diverging phase begins by looking into information about the organisation and its context, and then moves beyond this information to identify what is missing or what may add value and inspiration. After all the information has been collated, the converging phase begins with the goal of turning all the gathered information into insights. These insights will be translated into a visual and concrete overview to be used on the first day of the Vision Sprint, and a written summary of the inspiration phase will be distributed to the sprint team in advance so they can read themselves into the matter.

Key tips for this phase that we’ve accumulated based on experience, and details on how to involve sprint team members in the inspiration phase can be found here.

3. The official sprint

The official sprint is an intense week that successfully translates insights and inspiration into a new concept of vision. The agenda runs over five days, following an underlying sprint model and diverge-converge pattern. It’s usually run over a weekend with a gap between decision day (on Friday) and prototyping day (on Monday). This gap gives the sprint team members a chance to recuperate, and gives decision makers enough space to ruminate over the winning idea and the chance to recall it before prototyping day if necessary.

The first three days are a cycle of ideation and selection, narrowing down a diverse and vast selection to a handful of the best ideas. The best ideas will each be outlined into a concept and then presented to decision makers and experts on the third day. The decision makers will then vote for a winning idea and new future vision. The goal of the fourth day is to prototype and validate the vision to convince decision makers to invest in it. The last day is all about validation: meeting with experts, and users of customers if possible, to get their feedback and input based on the prototype.

A major advantage of the Vision Sprint is that it validates a vision. The vision remains validated even if a product (or part of a strategy based on that vision) doesn’t work as envisaged. In fact, our approach transforms a failed product into a learning milestone. A common mistake made by organisations is to consider vision, strategy and products ultimately interconnected; where if one thing fails, everything will come crashing down like a house of cards.

Check out our essential Vision Sprint tips and tricks that will make or break your sprint here.

4. Post-sprint follow-up

By the end of the official sprint, an initial new vision has been created. Although the vision goes through initial rounds of validation and prototyping, it has yet to be solidified and executed as part of the organisation. Hence why it should be followed up with an Acceleration Sprint (our recommendation) and other post-sprint activities.

The Acceleration Sprint takes the output of the Vision Sprint and accelerates the path of creation to grow and develop the new vision. It’s not about changing or altering the vision, but about solidifying and improving it as much as possible. The sprint runs over a week, with an additional week of validation followed after.

After weeks of designing, building and validating a new vision, the final step is to execute the vision and wrap everything up. Focus on writing up a sprint report, finalising an actionable roadmap for the organisation to realise their new vision, organise a retrospective with the client, and provide an assessment of our future involvement.

Refer to this article for a detailed breakdown of the Acceleration Sprint and tips on other post-sprint follow-up processes.

To cross the finish line

We must stress once again that the Vision Sprint format is not suited for seizing current opportunities, keeping up with competition, or improving current products and services. If clients need to focus on making incremental improvements to existing products or services, we recommend doing a Strategy Sprint, Design Sprint or Design Track instead.

Formulated to help organisations create ambitious and validated new future visions, the Vision Sprint is about leading the way to something new. It’s a weeks-long marathon that challenges organisations to push their ambitions and seek new ways of approaching or looking at things. Through our strategic product design approach, the Vision Sprint translates insights and ideations into a validated future vision that is ambitious and forward-looking. This new future vision will unite members of an organisation towards a clear goal and help them build successful products, services and experiences. But always remember: the Vision Sprint finish line is only the beginning of a new future vision.