/tool-design-sprint-test-and-score

name: tool-design-sprint-test-and-score
description: Day 5 (Friday) sprint-closing move of a Design Sprint that produces the bundled Friday artifact covering per-customer interview observations, best quotes, scorecard grid (sprint questions by customers), observed patterns, hot takes from each team member, and the Decider summary (build, iterate, pivot, or stop, plus highest-confidence learning, most important revision, and next artifact). Use Friday after Thursday's prototype passes trial run and during/after the 5 customer interviews. The sprint's payoff artifact.
license: Apache-2.0
metadata:
  classification: tool
  version: "1.0.0"
  updated: 2026-07-04
  tool: design-sprint
  move: test-and-score
  category: discovery
  frameworks:
    - design-sprint
    - sprint
  timebox_minutes: 270
  roles:
    - facilitator
    - researcher
    - decider
    - pm
    - design
    - engineering
  prerequisites:
    - tool-design-sprint-prototype-plan
  inputs:
    - prototype (built Thursday; NOT produced by this skill)
    - interview script (from tool-design-sprint-prototype-plan)
    - sprint questions (from Monday's map-and-target)
    - founding hypothesis (optional; from a prior Foundation Sprint)
    - participant schedule
  outputs:
    - per-customer interview observation notes
    - best quotes
    - scorecard grid
    - observed patterns
    - hot takes
    - decider summary
  author: product-on-purpose

<!-- PM-Skills | https://github.com/product-on-purpose/pm-skills | Apache 2.0 -->

Design Sprint Test and Score (Friday)

Friday is the sprint's payoff. 5 target-profile customers run the prototype while the team observes; the team synthesizes observations into a scorecard against the sprint questions; the Decider makes the build / iterate / pivot / stop call by end-of-day. The week's 35-40 person-days plus customer recruiting cost converts into one actionable decision.

Family contract: [`docs/reference/skill-families/design-sprint-skills-contract.md`](../../docs/reference/skill-families/design-sprint-skills-contract.md). This skill is a member of `design-sprint-skills`.

When to Use

• It is Day 5 of the Design Sprint and Thursday's prototype passed trial run.
• 5 confirmed participants are scheduled (canonical; or 4 if 1 cancelled-and-no-buffer; pause if below 4).
• The team can observe interviews live (in-person or via Zoom breakout room) and synthesize during the day.
• The Decider is present Friday PM for the post-interview review (canonically 14:00-18:00 PT window covering observation of slots 4-5 plus Decider review by 17:30 PT).

When NOT to Use

• Thursday prototype did not pass trial run. Re-run trial; if still failing at 19:00 PT Thursday, postpone Friday.
• Fewer than 3 customers confirmed. Per Ratified Decision 3, the canonical guidance is 5 customers; 3-4 or 6-7 gets a documented warning; below 3 or above 7 should trigger a re-decision (postpone or split testing). Note: the v0.1.0 family validator does NOT mechanically enforce these thresholds (cohort count is in the EXAMPLE artifact, not in frontmatter); enforcement is a v2.16 validator-expansion candidate.
• Decider unavailable for the post-interview review window. Without Decider, the day produces observations without a call.
• The team plans to use this skill to write the executive memo. Per Ratified Decision 4: exec memo authoring is delegated to `foundation-stakeholder-update` (existing pm-skills foundation skill); this skill produces the Decider summary only.

What This Skill Produces

A single bundled artifact with six sections:

1. **Per-customer interview observation notes**: one section per customer; covers Context (Act 2) reactions, Tasks (Act 4) behavior with timestamps, Debrief (Act 5) reactions including pricing. Captured live during the day's interviews. 2. **Best quotes**: 5-15 verbatim customer quotes the team flags as most signal-bearing. Used in the Decider summary and in any downstream pitch or planning artifact. 3. **Scorecard grid**: rows are the sprint questions (from Monday); columns are the 5 customers; each cell is Y / N / partial / unclear with a one-line note; rightmost column is the team's day-end decision per question (Validated / Invalidated / Inconclusive). 4. **Observed patterns**: 4 buckets (worked, hesitated, broke trust, unexpected) with 2-4 patterns per bucket. Each pattern names how many customers showed it. 5. **Hot takes**: one short paragraph per team member capturing their personal read on Friday before group synthesis biases the read. Written silently in parallel. 6. **Decider summary**: the Decider's call (build / iterate / pivot / stop / reframe) plus the highest-confidence learning, the most important revision the team would make to the prototype direction, and the next artifact the team will produce (the post-sprint deliverable).

See `references/TEMPLATE.md` for the canonical structure and `references/EXAMPLE.md` for the Brainshelf book-catalog Friday artifact.

Friday Time Structure

Friday is the longest day: customer interviews start early (canonically 09:00 PT) and the Decider review concludes the day (canonically 17:30 PT).

• **09:00-16:30**: 5 customer interviews of 50-60 minutes each at 09:00 / 10:30 / 12:00 / 14:00 / 15:30. Each slot: 10 min setup + 50-55 min interview + 5 min team huddle to capture observations before next customer.
• **13:00-14:00**: Lunch (slot 3 wraps ~13:00; lunch overlaps the slot 3 to slot 4 buffer)
• **16:30-16:45**: Last-customer wrap; observation note tidy
• **16:45-17:00**: Team writes hot takes silently in parallel
• **17:00-17:30**: Decider reviews scorecard + hot takes; makes the call
• **17:30-18:00**: Decider summary captured; team begins post-sprint disposition (next-step calendar, downstream deliverable assignment)

This skill's 270-minute timebox covers the synthesis sections (scorecard, patterns, hot takes, Decider summary). The 5 interviews themselves (~5 hours of interview time) run in parallel with c