Before the day · Page 12
Get the yes
For you only
You need two yeses before anything else: your manager's yes to the day, and a senior sponsor's yes to the last hour. Both are easier than they look, if you ask in the right shape.
The manager pitch. Do not open with the format. Open with the stuck thing. Pick the decision your team has been circling (Chapter 6 gave you six ways to spot it), then make the offer concrete:
Say something like
"We have been debating X for a month. Give me one day and eight people, and by five o'clock we will have four working prototypes, reactions from real users, and a decision. If it does not work, we lost a day. The current argument has already cost us four."
The exchange rate is the argument. One day of eight people against a quarter of drift. You are not asking for a workshop, you are offering to close a decision that is already expensive.
The leadership ask. The most senior person you can reach joins for the last hour only, watches the pitches, and makes the call in the room. Ask for exactly that, and say the number out loud: one hour. One hour is an easy yes, even from someone hard to reach. A whole day is not. Chapter 9 covers what to do once they say yes.
Handling the two objections you will hear.
"We do not have time for a hackathon." Agree, then reprice it. It is not extra work, it is the same decision the team is already spending meetings on, compressed into a day that ends.
"Can't we just have engineering prototype it?" Yes, in three weeks, as one interpretation. The day gets four interpretations by the people who talk to customers, tested the same afternoon. And it costs pocket money, not sprint capacity.
This week, write one challenge for your own product in the user, context, goal shape, and pitch it to your manager. That is the whole first step.