Design Sprint vs. Innovation Workshop: Which One Actually Solves Your Problem?

Ah, the eternal struggle—should you run a Design Sprint or an Innovation Workshop? 

Spoiler alert: these two are NOT the same. Pick the wrong one, and you’ll waste time, money, and your team’s desire to keep working. So, let’s break it down.

What’s A Design Sprint?

A Design Sprint is a hyper-structured process that takes you from idea to prototype to actual user testing—getting real feedback before launching.

It’s perfect when:

• You already know the problem and just need to validate a solution.
• You want to test a new feature before dumping resources into development.
• Your team has stopped debating and is ready to do something real.

Basically, if you’ve already defined the issue and need to see if your idea actually works, a Design Sprint is the way to go.

What’s An Innovation Workshop?

Think of an Innovation Workshop as a brainstorming session—but actually productive. It’s guided creative chaos with a skilled facilitator who keeps everyone from veering into pointless tangents.

It’s best when:

• You don’t know what the problem is yet—just that something’s broken.
• Your company is drowning in “why do people hate our product?” and/or “why is no one buying” discussions.
• You need to align different teams before jumping into execution.

An Innovation Workshop helps you define the problem before you even think about solving it. That way, you don’t waste time fixing the wrong thing.

Getting Team Buy In On The Process

Teams love talking about innovation but often panic at the thought of structured change. So, if you need to sell a Design Sprint or an Innovation Workshop to leadership, try this:

Skip The Jargon – Call it “user testing” or “rapid problem-solving,” not “Design Thinking.” Buzzwords = instant ignore.

Focus On Speed – A week of structured progress beats months of unproductive debates.

Show Competitor Wins – Nothing motivates leadership like “Company X did this and won big.”

Promise Alignment – Say goodbye to never-ending discussions where nothing gets done.

Run A Small Test – A quick session with tangible results shuts down skeptics fast. And if you’re looking for an entrypoint to see which one works best for you, you may want to check out our Launchpad solution.

Don’t Just Guess—Validate

If your company is still playing the “maybe this will work?” game, it’s time to create a process that will help you define what will ACTUALLY work. 

Run an Innovation Workshop if you don’t know the problem. Run a Design Sprint if you do.

Pick the right approach, and you’ll get somewhere. Pick the wrong one, and, well… enjoy another round of “Why aren’t we seeing results?” meetings.

And if you want to make sure you’re picking the right approach, let’s talk first.