Design Sprint and Rapid Prototyping: Test Ideas with Users in Days – Paris, 30 Aug – 3 Sep 2027

Programme overview

Technical depth: Practitioner · Practical mode: Lab

Introduction

Teams often spend months building a product, service or process before anyone checks whether users want it. Meetings circle, opinions win over evidence and the first real feedback arrives after the budget is spent. A design sprint compresses that learning into a few days. This Core Concept course trains cross-functional team members to plan, facilitate and run design sprints, build realistic prototypes quickly and test them with users. Working in a hands-on lab, participants produce a Sprint Pack containing a tested prototype, user test findings and a recommended next step.

Course Objectives

• Scope a sprint challenge, long-term goal and sprint questions with a decision-maker
• Facilitate each sprint stage, from mapping and sketching to decision and storyboard
• Build prototypes at the right fidelity using paper, slide and digital prototyping tools
• Plan and run user tests, then synthesise the findings into clear patterns
• Adapt the sprint format for remote teams, services and non-digital problems
• Assemble a Sprint Pack that supports a build, pivot or stop decision

Target Audience

• Product and service team members who develop new offerings
• Designers and user experience practitioners responsible for prototypes and testing
• Business analysts and process specialists who shape solution requirements
• Innovation and improvement facilitators who run workshops for cross-functional teams
• Digital project team members moving concepts into delivery

Course Outline

Day 1: Design Sprint Foundations and Challenge Setting

• Design Sprint Origins, Use Cases and When Not to Sprint
• Sprint Team Roles: Decider, Facilitator and Experts
• Sprint Brief and Challenge Scoping Canvas
• Long-Term Goal and Sprint Questions Formulation
• Challenge Map and Target Moment Selection

Day 2: Sprint Frameworks and Usability Standards

• GV One-Week Design Sprint Structure
• Design Sprint 2.0 Four-Day Format
• Lightning Decision Jam for Problem Alignment
• ISO 9241-11 Usability Concepts: Effectiveness, Efficiency and Satisfaction
• Ask the Experts Interviews and How Might We Note Clustering

Day 3: Sketching, Deciding and Prototyping

• Lightning Demos and the Four-Step Sketch with Crazy 8s
• Art Museum, Heat Map Vote and Supervote Decision
• Storyboard Construction for the Prototype Flow
• Clickable Prototype Build in Figma
• Paper, Slide and Wizard of Oz Prototyping for Services

Day 4: User Testing, Synthesis and Sprint Variants

• Five-User Test Planning and Interview Script
• Test Observation Grid and Pattern Synthesis
• System Usability Scale (SUS) Scoring and Interpretation
• Remote Sprint Facilitation on Miro and Video Platforms
• Sprint Failure Modes: Absent Deciders, Scope Creep and Over-Fidelity

Day 5: Lab Sprint and the Sprint Pack

• Compressed Sprint Run on a Participant Challenge
• Prototype Refinement Against Test Findings
• Live User Test Session with Structured Observation
• Build, Pivot or Stop Recommendation from the Test Evidence
• Sprint Pack Presentation and Peer Review

Skills You Will Gain

• Workshop Facilitation
• Challenge Scoping
• Rapid Prototyping
• Usability Testing
• Test Synthesis
• Visual Storyboarding
• Remote Collaboration
• Evidence-Based Decision Framing

Why Attend This Course

• Leave with a Sprint Pack containing a prototype tested with real users during the course
• Replace long debates with a structured process that reaches decisions in days
• Build prototypes realistic enough to test without writing code or committing budget
• Learn sprint practice alongside team members from other sectors and countries

Conclusion

A design sprint gives a team evidence before it commits time and money to building the wrong thing. This course moves from sprint scoping and roles, through the principal sprint formats and usability concepts, to sketching, prototyping and user testing, and then to the failure modes and remote variants that trip up new sprint teams. The final day runs a compressed sprint on a real challenge and produces a Sprint Pack that participants can use to argue for a clear next step.