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

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 Sprint, innovation and growth expert Atif Rafiq argues that while talent is critically important to any company’s success, the systems through which collaboration and decision-making happen are what separate industry leaders from the rest—and that systems designed to embrace unknowns are quickest and most enduring way to foster growth, continuous innovation, and realization of strategy.

This groundbreaking guide walks readers through the process of embracing unknowns from the start of a bright idea, strategic project, or new initiative through the steps of alignment and decision making with sponsors and executives. He distills his knowledge into 13 “superpowers” that rewire how people think, collaborate, and decide in order to foster fearless interaction with the unknown, constructive questioning, team-based problem solving, and a collective IQ lift for everyone involved in strategic or innovation initiatives.

These superpowers include:



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
Socializing Knowledge—to solidify buy-in, creating alignment and “drama” free decision-making for important initiatives
Landing and Expanding to Achieve Adoption—to drive change one initiative at a time, starting at the team level
Leveraging Digital Tools—to utilize game changing software to enable decision sprints and pave the way for a goldmine of data about upstream work
Preparing for AI—to assist leader and management with new level of radar and signal about the momentum or lack of it when it comes to translating strategy into action



Distilling years of experience working in the upper echelons of both long-established corporations and Silicon Valley organizations, Atif Rafiq has learned that when a system works to embrace the unknowns that come with new growth and market opportunities, the results can be extraordinary.

Leverage Rafiq’s superpowers to make innovation and creativity part of your company’s DNA—and build your organization into an industry leader that constantly makes the leap from identification of whitespaces, innovation, and growth opportunities to taking decisive action on them.