tool-design-sprint-test-and-score

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# 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 continuous observation capture.

## Scorecard Mechanic

The scorecard is a 2-D grid. Rows are sprint questions from Monday's map-and-target (typically 3-7). Columns are the 5 customers (anonymized IDs). Each cell answers: did this customer's interview validate, invalidate, or leave inconclusive the row's question?

| | C1 | C2 | C3 | C4 | C5 | Day-end decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | Y | Y | N | Y | partial | Validated (4 of 5) |
| Q2 | N | Y | unclear | N | N | Invalidated (3-of-5 N, 1 of 5 Y) |
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |

Day-end decision rules:
- **Validated**: 4 or 5 of 5 Y (strong signal); 3 of 5 Y with no N (directional). For 4-customer cohorts: 4 Y is Validated; 3 Y with no N is directional.
- **Invalidated**: 4 or 5 of 5 N. For 4-customer cohorts: 4 N is Invalidated; 3 N with no Y is directional.
- **Inconclusive**: all other patterns. Inconclusive questions get scheduled for follow-up (a smaller test, a quant experiment, or a second Design Sprint).

The Decider can override day-end decisions but should record reasoning.

## Common Pitfalls

- **Observation notes too narrative, not behavioral.** "Customer seemed confused" is a narrative; "Customer hovered on the capture button for 4 seconds without tapping, then tapped twice in rapid succession" is behavior. Behavior is data; narrative is interpretation.
- **Scorecard cells filled in by consensus.** Each observer writes their ce