Sprint

I'm going to be bold here. This is one of those books, like the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and “Getting Things Done” that lays out what you think might be obvious in a way that makes it actionable and concrete. It belongs on the same shelf, to serve as a reminder of the tools available to us.

Basically, Jake Knapp clearly (with examples from Google Ventures) lays out how you can save time by focusing attention on ideation, elimination, and testing to get from “My Big Idea” to “My Actual Thing” in a reasonable amount of time. Pitfalls, roles, and materials are all identified. The decision structures and limits laid out in each step may be the most valuable part of this book. I like that you can read it straight through and see how this worked for the example ventures (only one of them is software) and still reference the the tools and checklists included in the book from the website later.

While I have not tested the Sprint idea, I feel confident (since it was tested by Google Ventures more than 100 times) that following the plan will work for many different kinds of ideas. This book is an incredibly fast read with well-organized reference material. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to do/create/make/sell/etc. something and isn't exactly sure how to get there.