Sample plan: launch discovery sprint
Written for an invented company, to show the shape of the work. It holds no client material.
- For: a regional distributor selling parts to trade customers (an invented example)
- The question, in the client's words:
Our customers still call to order. Where do we start so they'll order online?
- Length: three weeks, one fixed price, fixed deliverables. Nothing is designed or built in the sprint.
Week 1: find out what is true
- Kickoff: confirm the question, the one buying flow to study, who is interviewed, and who decides what.
- Walk the flow as a customer, on a phone and a desktop: find a part, see a price, try to order, and note every place it stalls.
- Interview up to eight people who sell, fulfill, support and manage, and one or two customers. Each shows how the work is done, not just describes it.
- Read the real material: the catalog export, order data, support logs and the current plan.
Week 2: make sense of it
- Map how buying works today, and check the map against a live order.
- List what the catalog, operations and systems will and will not allow.
- Midpoint check with the sponsor: the problem in draft, the two or three findings that matter, and any choice between directions, shown evenly as options A, B and C.
- Map how buying should work in the direction chosen.
Week 3: decide and hand over
- A readiness assessment, with a section for each of the four areas (ready to compete, ready to sell, ready to run, ready to scale): what has to be true to launch, each item marked ready, not ready or not assessed, with the evidence. No score.
- A plan by milestone: milestone 1 is the least that makes it work for real customers; the rest is ordered by what it unblocks.
- The readout: the sponsor decides to proceed (with Sandbucket, with another team, or in-house), to proceed once named conditions are met, or to stop. All three are valid.
What the client keeps
The problem statement, both maps, the constraints list, the readiness assessment, the plan by milestone, and a decision log with a handoff note that lets anyone pick the work up.
Not included
Screen design, copy, brand, development, platform selection, and research beyond the agreed flow.
How it starts
An intro call, then a one-page statement of work with the question written at the top.
Or write to hello@sandbucket.io