My Digital Wellbeing Sprint experience 

As a course, the Digital Wellbeing Sprint is different from usual bachelor’s and master’s courses. It is done as an intensive course, lasting about a week. For us tutors, our process began in February, three months before the actual intensive part of the course began.   

I had previously completed 15 credits worth of service design courses so the idea of creative work and prototyping a project was familiar. These I had done whilst studying for a Master of Health Care, Health Business Management degree and within Master of Business Administration, Future-Oriented Project Management studies. What really helped to understand the essence of the sprint before the actual event took place was reading a book about it.  

The methods used are fast-paced, creative and they let all the team members participate in the co-creation process. The five day design sprint helps to develop services quite quickly and effectively. This is something that many businesses could benefit highly from. This is also something that suits creative, imaginative people as it lets them open their  wonderfully creative minds and combine their ideas, no matter what the project. The five day design sprint is a method I would warmly recommend everyone to participate in and it is also something I would much like to practise whilst working in the future. The method has a very Agile kind of an edge.  

What I learnt was to use a faster pace than the typical service design process utilises. This felt refreshing as I enjoy when things are rolling ahead without delays. Many times while facilitating the sprint I wished that I could have also jumped in and shared my ideas but the facilitation process is different from the actual participation to the sprint. So I could summarise that what I also learnt was how to facilitate the sprint.  

The whole sprint was done virtually which has been the norm for the past two years. I could also see it done on campus, face to face. That would add a different vibe to co-creation because everyone would be actually present and working together instead of being a black box with a name on the Zoom screen.   

I highly recommend the Digital Wellbeing Sprint to anyone who is interested in co-creation, using their imagination in the development of health related digital services!  

Blog post written by Liisa Snäll, Master’s degree student in Health Business Management, Master of Health Care, graduating in 2022, also studying for a Master of Business Administration degree on Future Oriented Project Management.