Decision Sprint: The New Way to Innovate into the Unknown and Move from Strategy to Action

by Atif Rafiq

Breakthrough methods to solve for the unknown on the path to innovation, creativity, and business growth, while avoiding bureaucracy and stagnation.

What sits above any person, project, function, or strategy in your organization? What impacts your company’s performance for years and decades? What shows up in nearly every interaction and decision in your organization? Like it or not, there are systems at work in your organization that standardize how people think, collaborate, and make decisions. These systems affect everything, yet they’re rarely discussed, managed, or even thought about.

In Decision SprintI Fortune 500 and Silicon Valley trailblazer Atif Rafiq, demonstrates how teams start with upstream work to problem solve anything, and unlock downstream actions from alignment to decision making to execution.

Upstream work--the phase of a promising idea or initiative where the unknowns predominate―is a massive unstructured activity within companies of all kinds. Rafiq provides a system to embrace unknowns from the start of a bright idea, strategic problem or new initiative through the steps of alignment and decision making with sponsors and executives.

Rafiq argues that while talent is vital to any company’s success, collaboration and decision-making systems separate industry leaders from the rest―and that systems designed to embrace unknowns are the quickest, most enduring way to foster growth, continuous innovation and problem solving.

In Decision Sprint, you'll learn about:

-Moving Upstream―to feed and smooth the way for downstream execution
Establishing Decision Sprints―to tap into the power of questioning, gather the right input and defeat the fear of unknowns
-Crafting Workflows―to bring decision sprint to life and streamline meetings and collaboration
-Calibration over Control―a new mantra for leaders to unleash the power of teams and bringing out the best in people
-CEO perspectives―hear from CEOs/presidents of H&R Block, Peacock, Volvo, Restaurant Brands, Orange Theory Fitness, and others on the keys to innovation and growth
-Preparing for AI―the game-changing role of software, the goldmine of data it will unleash, and how AI will assist leaders and management with new level of radar and signal about performance
-Landing and Expanding to Achieve Adoption―to drive change one initiative at a time, starting at the team level
-Told through a practitioner’s eyes, Rafiq shares pivotal stories from companies such as Amazon, McDonald’s and Volvo about high stakes initiatives and key forks in the road.

Teams and the leaders who oversee them will immediately relate to the pitfalls of today’s approach―blindspots, inertia, watered-down ideas, small thinking, and endless alignment―and learn how Decision Sprint ensures avoiding them all together.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 25, 2023

About the author

Atif Rafiq has blazed trails in Silicon Valley and the Fortune 500 for over 25 years. After rising through digital native companies like Amazon, Yahoo!, and AOL, Atif held C-suite roles at McDonald’s, Volvo, and MGM Resorts. He oversaw thousands of employees as a global P&L, transformation, and innovation leader. Rafiq was the first Chief Digital Officer in the history of the Fortune 500, a pioneering role he held at McDonalds, and he rose to the president level in the Fortune 300.

While leading business units, teams, and growth for companies, Atif has built a large following as one of today's top management thinkers. Over half a million people follow his ideas about management and leadership, his newsletter Re:wire has over 100,000 subscribers, and he is a Top Voice on LinkedIn.

Atif is passionate about helping companies push boldly into the future. He accomplishes this through Ritual, a software app revolutionizing how teams innovate and problem-solve, and through his work as keynote speaker, Board member, and CEO advisor.

Reviews

[zoagli · Rating 1 out of 5]

The title is misleading. There is no “new way to innovate” here that hasn’t already been covered by a thousand books on Design Thinking. Superfluous.

And it’s no “sprint” either, since the author prescribes no less than 13 “workflows” you need in order to turn unknown unknowns into … a detailed plan that you then simply execute. Ridiculous.

[Amy Bruno · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was sent for free to my Library. There do not seem to be any genuine reviews. I attempted to read this book, but it appears to be filled with buzz words and jargon. Perhaps to a business person this book would be perfectly understandable, but to a librarian, not so much. I hope someone reads this and gives it an honest review soon.

[Van · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very lengthy way of writing. I coundn’t finish the book. The first 30% of the book is telling you how awesome and how significantly impactful this method is. And then, I dropped after that 30%…

Not to mention the key learnings (since I haven’t enough patience to read full of it yet), the writing style in this book already failed me. Though in the content, the author tried to put his shoes in the stakeholders’ expectations, yet fail to put in audience’s shoes in this book.

[A. Athar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clear and intelligent breakdown of how a company goes from big ideas to execution through a systematic approach. Many ideas get stuck or watered down along the way, especially in larger companies. The author not only elaborates on his methodology but provides the credibility of a practicioner. He's done it at Amazon, McDonald's, Volvo and elsewhere. It's a rare peak inside the mind of a C Suite executive who's done it and has taken the time to craft a methodology for any team in any company to adopt.

[Gold Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow

This book is mind-blowing, even the Workbook By Aurum Publishing on Amazon is superb.

[Genert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good framework for project execution but falls short in everything else especially at the end with ramblings on AI and blockchain.