September 2026 · 8 min read · 13 skills, free

13 Claude Skills for Design Sprints That Land

Work out whether a sprint is the right tool at all, frame the challenge, cast the room, and book five real testers. Then run the week — map, target, sketch, decision, storyboard, prototype, Friday's five conversations — and land it on the Monday after.

01What these skills are

A whole sprint engagement, as installable Claude skills

Thirteen skills for the whole engagement, not just the five days. The arc runs from working out whether a sprint is even the right tool, through the week itself, to the Monday after, where most sprints quietly end.

One line holds through all of it: a sprint buys a decision people will defend on Monday, not a document.

Claude will generate concepts for the wall on sketch day, but nothing of its own reaches the vote unless a human puts their name on it. The heat map, the Decider's call and the five conversations stay human.

Mechanically, each skill is one folder with a SKILL.md file. The 13 are grouped into three phases, and each one gives full value on its own. They work from one Claude Project per sprint.

Download all 13 skills

One zip: ready-to-install skill zips, readable SKILL.md files, and the two blank templates. Free, no signup. The same 13 skills live in our open repo, if you would rather read them before you install them.

Download the zip Browse on GitHub

Install in Claude Code

Two lines, and every skill in the pack loads at once.

/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills
/plugin install design-sprint-pack@polar-bear-skills

Using Claude on the web instead? Download the zip above and upload each skill from its install folder under Customize → Skills.

02The catalog

The 13 skills you get

The set follows the whole engagement, not just the five days: five skills before the week starts, seven inside it, and one for the Monday after.

1 · Before the week starts

Sprint Qualifier

Use when: A client just asked you for “a design sprint” and you are not sure they need one
Output: A two-page qualification memo: the five gates with a one-line verdict each, the Decider answer verbatim, the recommendation in one sentence, the alternative to sell if it is a no, and a draft email to the client you edit into your own voice

Challenge Framer

Use when: The sprint is happening and you need to know what it is actually about
Output: The one-page sprint brief: slug, long-term goal, sprint questions, challenge statement, customer, target moment, constraints, variant and dates, the Decider, and the “not this week” list. Every other skill in the pack reads it

Sprint Cast Builder

Use when: Two to four weeks out, when you are trying to get people to block a week
Output: The seven seats with real names and the knowledge each brings, the Decider's status and the delegation line, the expert list with slots and two questions each, the pre-read text ready to send, the hour-by-hour calendar for your variant, and a risk list of who has not confirmed

Test Recruiter

Use when: Ten days out, and the customers who will see the prototype are still hypothetical
Output: The screener ready to send, the sourcing plan with an owner per route, six booked slots with confirmation status, the incentive and how it is paid, the consent text, and the standby plan. The top line is a live count: booked, confirmed, showed

Sprint Facilitator Kit

Use when: Before the sprint, then again mid-week when something in the room goes wrong
Output: The room craft rather than the agenda: timeboxing that holds, protecting silent work, the move for each people problem, energy across five days, and running it remote. Optionally a facilitation notes file — process only, never anything about how a named person behaved

2 · The week itself

Map and Target Runner

Use when: The morning the sprint starts
Output: The confirmed or amended goal and questions, the map as numbered steps with actors, the How Might We notes clustered with vote counts, the expert quotes worth keeping, the target in one sentence, and the Decider's reason verbatim. Written before anyone goes home

Sketch Day Runner

Use when: The night before sketch day, that morning, and again once the human sketches are up
Output: The Lightning Demo list with every source named, the human sketch count with the titles their authors gave them, the machine concepts with the cluster or constraint each came from, and the adoption record: who put their name on what. Never who drew which human sketch

Decision Day Runner

Use when: The morning you have to choose between sketches
Output: The heat map's clusters in words, every concern captured as a question, the straw poll result, the supervote with the Decider's verbatim reason for each dot, the rumble or all-in-one call, and the gap between room and Decider if there was one. No record of who put which dot where

Storyboard Builder

Use when: Straight after the vote, while the room is still together
Output: Fifteen numbered panels with what is on screen, the real words in it, and what the tester is meant to do; then the map from panel to sprint question, and the gaps the room chose to accept. With the prototype plan, this is the whole build spec

Prototype Plan Writer

Use when: The night before build day, or first thing that morning
Output: The panel list marked real, facade or never seen; the tool call; four roles with names; the hour-by-hour build plan with the trial run in it; all the prototype content written out; and the fix list the trial run produces

Test Script Writer

Use when: Build day afternoon, once you know what the prototype does
Output: The five-act script with the exact welcome and prototype-introduction wording, your tasks mapped to sprint questions and storyboard panels, the allowed questions on a card the interviewer can hold, the debrief questions, and the note grid set up for your week

Friday Debrief Synthesizer

Use when: Friday, five o'clock, before anyone goes home
Output: The grid as a table, patterns confirmed by the room with their counts, single observations kept separate, each sprint question marked yes, no or unclear with its evidence, whether the result changes the bet or the detail, and an honest confidence statement. Testers stay numbered

3 · The Monday after

Monday After Planner

Use when: The following Monday, and not one day later
Output: A one-page decision record ready to send, plus a two-week plan: the road you are on, three to five items with named owners and dates, the evidence the sponsor will ask for before funding a build, and the follow-up meeting date. If there is no named owner, the file says so at the top

03How to use it

Pick the workflow that matches your week

One Sprint HQ project carries the engagement. Run Sprint Qualifier before the proposal goes out, not after.

Before the week starts

Two jobs to start side by side, before Monday: the room and the five testers.

Sprint Qualifier
Challenge Framer
Sprint Cast Builder
Test Recruiter
Sprint Facilitator Kit

Monday to Wednesday

Monday morning, seven people in a room, nothing on the wall.

Map and Target Runner
Sketch Day Runner
Decision Day Runner
Storyboard Builder

Prototype and test

The vote is done and something has to exist by tomorrow evening.

Prototype Plan Writer
Test Script Writer
Friday Debrief Synthesizer

The Monday after

We ran a sprint last month and nothing happened.

Friday Debrief Synthesizer
Monday After Planner

04Setup guide

Install it in five minutes

In Claude Code · two lines

/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills
/plugin install design-sprint-pack@polar-bear-skills

In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop · seven clicks

Download the pack, then open Settings
Unzip the pack: its skills folder holds all 13 skills. In Claude, click your name at the bottom left, then Settings.
Download the zip
Open Skills and click Add
Under Customize, choose Skills. Click Add, then Upload a skill.
Drop in a skill file
Drag the skill's file into the box, or click to browse. You can add several at once.
Pick the skill from the pack
In the pack folder, open skills, then the skill you want, and select its SKILL.md — sprint-qualifier is a good first one.
Check the preview and upload
Claude shows the skill's name and what it does. Click Upload.
Make sure it is switched on
The skill opens on its own page. Its toggle should be on.
Try it in a new chat
Type / and the skill's name, then say what you need.

Then try one

Run sprint-qualifier on this client request: [paste it here]

Run challenge-framer on the client's description of the challenge: [paste it here]

Run monday-after-planner on Friday's debrief: [paste it here]

Lantern for design sprint facilitators

Turn what a sprint week taught you into posts

Lantern drafts a week of posts from your notes and call transcripts, in your voice. You review them and publish the ones you like.

100 free credits, about ten posts. No card needed.

Try for free

05Quick reference

Where to start

Your situation	Skill to run
A client asked for a design sprint and nobody has checked whether it fits	Sprint Qualifier
The week is booked and the challenge is still a paragraph of client language	Challenge Framer
Three weeks out and nobody has blocked the week	Sprint Cast Builder
Friday is coming and no testers are booked	Test Recruiter
First time facilitating, and one director will not stop talking	Sprint Facilitator Kit
Monday morning, seven people in a room, nothing on the wall	Map and Target Runner
The sketches are up and the room has to choose	Decision Day Runner
The vote is done and something has to exist by tomorrow evening	Prototype Plan Writer
The fifth tester has left and everyone wants to go home	Friday Debrief Synthesizer
We ran a sprint last month and nothing happened	Monday After Planner

06Standards

The quality bar

Every skill in the pack holds the same standard, the one we hold when we run a sprint ourselves:

A sprint buys a decision people will defend on Monday, not a document: the heat map, the Decider's call and the five conversations stay human
Ideas can come from anywhere, Claude included — but a machine concept that draws heat comes off the wall unless a person puts their name on it, even if it had the most dots
No concept reaches the wall before the human sketch round is sealed: anchoring is not a preference, it is what will happen
Claude never votes, never ranks the sketches and never breaks a tie, including on the concepts it generated the day before
Testers are real strangers: never simulated, never roleplayed, never profiled, numbered in every file and described by what happened on the screen
Five sessions never become a percentage, a score or a rating: four out of five is four people
Anonymity holds after the week too — no record of who drew which sketch or placed which dot, and no reconstructing it later
No invented benchmarks and no manufactured yes: a qualification that ends in “no”, with the alternative to sell instead, is the pack working
Nothing evaluates a named person: a retro looks at what slowed the week down and what qualification missed, never at who underperformed

07FAQ

Questions people ask

What is in the Design Sprint pack?

13 Claude skills for the whole sprint engagement, in three phases: before the week starts, the week itself from map and target to the Friday debrief, and the Monday after.

How do I install these Claude skills?

In Claude Code, two lines install all 13 at once. In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop, download the zip, open Settings, Skills, Add, and upload the skills you want. Either way it takes about five minutes.

Do I need Claude Code to use them?

No. The skills work in Claude.ai, Claude Desktop and Claude Code. In the app you upload them yourself; in Claude Code one command installs the whole pack.

Do the skills work with ChatGPT or other assistants?

They are built as Claude Skills, and installing them is a Claude feature. Each one is a plain Markdown file, so you can read it and reuse the method elsewhere, but it will not load and trigger by itself outside Claude.

Will Claude vote or pick the winning sketch?

No. Claude never votes, never ranks the sketches and never breaks a tie. The heat map, the Decider's call and the five conversations stay human. A machine concept stays on the wall only if a person puts their name on it.

Is the pack free?

Yes. It is free to use inside your company and in client work, and not for resale. There is no signup: the download and the install command are on this page.

08Who made this

Lantern, by Polar Bear

These skills were written by Polar Bear, a people ops consultancy that runs its own company on Claude. The pack is free, and the same skills are open on GitHub.

Lantern is Polar Bear's content workspace. It turns your notes, documents and call transcripts into drafts for LinkedIn and other networks. You review them and publish the ones you like.