How to brief a market intelligence sprint.
The clearer the question you bring, the sharper the brief you get back. Most founders bring the wrong question.
The intake form.
A founder submitted his intake form last week. Under "What's the question this Sprint needs to answer?" he wrote: "Help us figure out our marketing strategy."
That's not a question. That's an open scope.
I sent it back with one ask: name one specific decision you're trying to make in the next 60 days. Five minutes later he replied: "Should we kill our newsletter and put that hour a week into LinkedIn instead?" Now that's a Sprint we can run.
What a good Sprint brief contains.
Three elements every good Sprint brief has:
The question names the choice in front of you. The stakes tell us how deep the evidence chain needs to go. The timeline tells us the right Sprint tier (1, 2, or 3).
Vague briefs produce vague briefs. The Sprint format works only as well as the question that triggered it.
How to write a good Sprint question.
Three drafts. Each one tighter than the last:
- Draft 1 (broad): "Help us figure out our marketing." (Too open. Sprint can't be aimed.)
- Draft 2 (narrower): "Help us figure out our channel strategy." (Still open. "Strategy" means too many things.)
- Draft 3 (decision-specific): "Should we kill our newsletter and shift that hour a week into LinkedIn?" (Clear decision. Clear yes/no/maybe outcome. Sprint can target this.)
The drafts should narrow toward a yes/no/maybe answer. If your question can't be answered with a ranked recommendation in 1-2 sentences, narrow it once more.
When the question is too narrow.
"Should I post on Tuesday or Wednesday?" is too narrow. That's a test, not a Sprint. Sprints work on decisions that need market evidence behind them; tests work on decisions you can A/B yourself in two weeks.
Back to the intake.
He resubmitted with the LinkedIn vs newsletter question. We ran Sprint 2 in 5 days. Pulled competitor cadence data, his email open rates, LinkedIn impression data, and reader-conversion patterns. Ranked recommendation came back: keep the newsletter at half cadence, shift 60% of the freed hour to LinkedIn experiments for 90 days, re-evaluate.
The recommendation is shippable. The question made the recommendation possible.
[TODO B · Mechanism/why]
[TODO: Explain WHY the thing in A happens. Cite mechanism, data, evidence.]
[Short italic pull-quote that crystalizes the mechanism]
[TODO C · Application/the move]
[TODO: What to do with the insight. Concrete steps.]
- [Step 1] description
- [Step 2] description
- [Step 3] description
[TODO: When NOT to do this / counter-case]
[TODO: One paragraph showing edge case or when the move is wrong.]
[TODO A' · Callback to scene]
[TODO: Return to the opening scene with new meaning. 2-3 sentences. Don't over-resolve.]
How do I brief a strategy sprint?
Three elements: one specific decision (the question), the stakes if you choose wrong (the weight), and the timeline (the deadline). The question names the choice in front of you. The brief format works only as well as the question that triggered it.
What's a good Sprint question?
One that names a specific decision in front of you with a yes/no/maybe answer. Example: "Should we hold the $499 price or move to $799?" Bad: "Help us figure out our pricing strategy."
What if I don't know what the question is yet?
Book a 15-minute signal review first. The call surfaces the right question to run the Sprint on. Founders often confuse symptom ("our CAC is up") with question ("should we shift channels or fix our funnel").
How specific should the Sprint question be?
Specific enough to answer with a yes/no/maybe + a ranked recommendation. If your question still has more than one decision in it, narrow once more. One Sprint, one question.
When is a question too narrow for a Sprint?
When you could A/B test it yourself in two weeks. Sprints target decisions that need market evidence behind them; tests handle decisions you can run inside your own funnel.
Last updated May 31, 2026. Field notes by Alex Lamb, LoopWorker.