The DWS experience from a student perspective

We have many blog posts about the tutors, partner companies and motivational speakers that have joined the Sprint over the years, but have you ever wondered about the experience of a student participating in the Digital Wellbeing Sprint? Stiina enjoyed her participation in the DWS so much that she joined two years in a row. Naturally, we had to adjust her duties and approach the second time she participated. Here are a few words about her experience as well as 5 tips on how to make the most out of the Digital Wellbeing Sprint when you participate as a student.

Fast, fun and fantastic

by Stiina Tilli

“Why on Earth would you want to take this course again?”, asked one of my tutor teachers when I told her that I was going to do Digital Wellbeing Sprint again, second year in a row. I’ll tell you why!

The original Google Ventures’ Design Sprint is a five-day process which aims to answer critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers. The 3UAS Digital Wellbeing Sprint is modified from this classic sprint model so that it consists of seven days instead of five and has the pitch in the end.

My first Digital Wellbeing Sprint was in spring 2021. When enrolling I had no idea, what the sprint would be like. My team’s client was Hivpoint, and we got to develop a web-based service to promote early detection of sexually transmitted infections by making contact tracing easier and more efficient. The sprint was in one word fantastic. Our team worked well together, and although we had diverse ideas at some point, we were able to come together and have a unified mind of the project. And the prototype was awesome! Hivpoint was also happy with our work and that was definitely the best reward.

The experience was so great that the idea of getting to live it all over again was born in my mind. I reached out to the teachers and luckily they told me that this could be implemented with some minor adjustments. So, in May 2022, I found myself in DWS Zoom once again, this time with client Disior and their 3D medical image analytics software Bonelogic. The purpose of the sprint was to improve the user experience of the software. The sprint gods must in my side since I was extremely lucky to get to work with another great team! The design sprint was carried out smoothly and although days were again intense, they were also enlightening and rewarding. The pitch in the end summed up the sprint nicely, and also the client seemed to be very pleased.

Having participated in two design sprints I am by no means an expert, but I nonetheless gathered up my five tips to a fruitful Digital Wellbeing Sprint:

1. Be open-minded! This is an experience that you might have had before. Apart from studying it a bit in advance, you may have no idea of what to expect. Welcome it all with an open mind. This way you’ll get the most out of sprinting.
2. Be vocal! There are people in your team that you don’t know beforehand. These passionate individuals have invested in the course and want to take all from it. There are multiple opinions and ideas flying around. It can be hard to get your voice aloud if you don’t be a little selfish at times. Grab your own moment and take advantage of it!
3. Go the extra mile! The ultimate goal of the sprint is to make the client super pleased with your outcome. It maybe goes without saying but achieving the best possible result in such a short time requires that extra effort from all of you. In the best scenario, one would forget that the sprint accumulates credits and immerse themselves wholly in the process.
4. Use humour! The sprint days can be quite loaded, and you may be using your second language with complete strangers all day long (on top of it in a remote environment!). Humour makes the hard work easier and helps keep your energy levels high. So joke around – but be appropriate of course!
5. Trust the process! This may seem like a cliché, and you most probably will hear this a million times during the sprint. But it’s really true! All the smaller and larger parts and assignments of the sprint support the process and have an impact on the final product. I like to refer a successful sprint to magic – it truly is amazing what can be accomplished during these couple of days and although you might question the method along the way, everything is done for a purpose!

Whether you are still considering participating in a design sprint or have done it already, my advice is this: do it and preferably many times!

Are you thinking to join the Digital Wellbeing Sprint as a tutor? Here are a few interesting blog posts from previous tutors in 2022 and 2021.

On building rapport…and smiling

An exciting and busy Sprint week is now behind us and having had time to reflect on the proceedings I find myself returning to one particular aspect. Design sprints and co-creation workshops are often populated by people from diverse backgrounds, different pre-existing knowledge bases regarding the project and varying goals for the work being conducted. Thus it is important from early on to establish common ground and an atmosphere that supports the participation of the whole team.

How does one build rapport in practice then? A leisurely stroll around the World Wide Web produced some interesting points to consider. Tony Robbins, an international entrepreneur among other things, describes building rapport as the process of creating deeper relationships with others. In How to build Rapport in Business he lists four points as a guide to building rapport through communication

1. Know yourself
   Look inwards and discover who you are as a communicator as a cornerstone of building rapport.
2. Practice empathy
   Empathy helps you engage more deeply.
3. Embrace new perspectives
   Strive to understand other people, and you’ll be better able to meet their needs.
4. Master the steps of communication
   Engage fully, by using both verbal and non-verbal communication to relay that you care and that you understand.

In How to build rapport in learning on-line sessions, author Kevin Babel (2020) also raises four points in his guide to establishing rapport: Awareness, Authenticity, Safe spaces and Camaraderie. Awareness as described by Babel involves seeing your audience and gauging their attention and level of energy. With authenticity Babel encourages the reader to be themselves when engaging with their audience, but a ”somewhat ’larger’ version” of themselves, to account for the fact that a virtual environment can have a diminishing effect. Safe spaces denote a non-judgemental environment, where frank discourse is encouraged and valued. And finally, camaraderie involves using exercises to actively promote team building.

In her piece titled Zoom Etiquette: How to Build Rapport Online Like a Pro Vanessa Van Edwards lists multiple techniques of which I will highlight a few here. 

• Use a warm greeting when you begin to engage with your audience to dramatically increase rapport
• Always virtual wave, showing instead of hiding your hands can allow you gain trust
• Make sure to introduce yourself
• Give everyone a chance to talk by passing the turn

How do these points relate to the experience of a Design Sprint you might ask? Well, I feel that to better support a team as a facilitator one must fully engage with the work, even though one is not necessarily part of the team as an ideator or a decision-maker. Thus, as Robbins put it, we should look inwards to find ourselves and reflect on who we are as communicators in order to better engage with our teams. Babel and Van Edwards give valuable practical advice on how one is to be in the virtual settings that are so dominant today. For me, the standout points were made about creating a safe space for the group to be able to collaborate more fully and engaging warmly with the group from the very beginning, thus setting the tone for the work to be conducted. All the writers mentioned here draw attention to valuable points to consider for all participants of Design Sprints. 

Personally, when participating in the next Design Sprint or engaging in another type of co-creative process with a multi-disciplinary team, I will be taking extra care that I “read the room” better right at the start. This will help me to offer help and guidance when appropriate, which I fell short of during this particular Sprint. So thanks to the Spouse Program Sprint team for their patience and above all hard work during our seven days together. Thanks also to the other teams for their fantastic ideas and final solutions, our partner companies for their active participation, our project manager Elena for keeping us on track and to my fellow tutors and the teachers involved in the Digital Wellbeing Sprint for their help and support. And to everyone for the laughs and smiles.

Oh yes. The smile. Remember to smile. In Psychology to Grin About: The Benefits of Smiling and Laughter the Psychology and Counseling News (2019) of The University of West Alabama say that when we smile, we’re more approachable, our bodies release good hormones, we relieve stress and we may even live longer. So, to facilitators and sprint participants alike: Be brave. Ask all the questions, even the obvious ones. Listen to your audience and team and hear what they are saying. Ask for and give help. Challenge each other. And remember to smile.

Viljami

https://www.tonyrobbins.com/business/building-rapport-in-business/

https://schoolofbabel.com/uncategorized/rapport-in-learning-on-line-sessions

https://www.scienceofpeople.com/zoom-etiquette/

https://online.uwa.edu/news/benefits-of-smiling-and-laughter/

What’s a Design Sprint and why it is important?

Recently I got an opportunity to participate in the Digital Wellbeing Sprint which was organized by 3UAS (Haaga-Helia, Laurea, and Metropolia). It is a seven days sprint that starts with the team building at the beginning of the sprint and ends with the pitching session. Digital Wellbeing Sprint is designed to solve the problems that have high stakes and to test out the business that you have and it only includes the method that is absolutely essential for your business. Each day in the sprint revolves around a specific topic mapping a target, sketching competing solutions, deciding the best, prototyping the realistic, and testing with the target customers. The well-defined time constraint makes it easier to focus on the most important aspects and get things done.

A design sprint is a unique process for validating ideas and solving big challenges through prototyping and testing ideas with customers. The original concept was adopted from Jake Knapp’s book. Back in 2010, he designed a process or method of working, that allows companies to develop their products and solutions much faster way. In order to develop a rapid method for solving problems what they came up with and refined is the sprint method and it’s a method that we can use to solve problems that have high stakes not enough time or we are just playing stuck on or we could use this method to test out that new business idea that we have. Let’s condense down the method to only include things that I consider absolutely essential. First, gather some supplies and get a large whiteboard marker with 3×5 post-it notes and some dot stickers.

Gather a team of fewer than seven people and elect a decider, the decider is typically the person who is ultimately responsible for the outcome it’s commonly the product manager or could be a CEO of the startup company. We need to set up a few interviews with end-users or target customers these interviews will be conducted on the last day of the sprint.

Here is how the Sprint works:

• Target Mapping: First we need to create a map start with the end in mind think of the happy ending be optimistic about our long-term goal it could be as simple as people buying our product or people enrolling in a program. The next list is of customers or a facilitator like a sales team in the story these are characters that we are trying to get to our end result. Once we have our map laid out on the wall we are going to bring in experts and ask them does this map looks right and what are we missing after the experts have filled-in some gaps we are going to be pessimistic which means we need to put ourself in a year in advance when everything turned out to be a disaster and we ask ourself what went wrong and write down the long list of potential issues and then we convert these issues into how might we question reframes challenges and problems as opportunities how much we get the customer to click this button the author say that reading of the how might we list feels a lot better than reading the problem list. We write down these how might we questions on 3×5 post-its and we put them on a wall then the team goes into the silent voting mode it’s silent because you prevent group thinks you prevent social persuasion we allow people to freely make their own decisions. Silent voting involves team members getting two dots and placing them on two how might we cards the deciders get four dots place them on four how might we cards then we grab all the how might we cards that have dots and try to place them back on the map soon we will recognize one event on the map you need to focus on and one actor that we need to focus on these are now your targets for the sprint.
• Sketch: Now it’s time to get team members to give minutes of pitches on potential solutions. The team elects a facilitator to sketch a quick drawing on the whiteboard of each idea this idea pitching session will last for about two hours after that team will go into a silent sketching mode each team member this entire sketching process may take you up to two hours.
• Decide: Now we gather everyone’s solution sketches and then we ask people to use 20 dot stickers to place their dots on interesting solutions then the team gathers around and identifies the highest clusters of dots then team discusses the pros and cons of each potential solution that has been identified by clusters of dots this structured approach allows the team to waste very little time there is no lengthy discussion and all ideas are critiqued one at a time then after that team gets together and tries to combine those three solutions into a longer storyboard a script for what they are going to try to be prototyping.
• Prototype: The prototype basically looks like a finished product but it’s just not functional. The purpose of the prototype is to gain people’s initial reaction to determine whether the solution is viable?. The prototype can be done simply by using a keynote or PowerPoint.
• Test: 85% of the problems were observed after just people were interviewed. Interviewing people provides diminishing returns, so we interview one at a time when the prototype is got introduced and we ask them to speak about the prototype to get what they feel and think about the prototype, the key is to focus on surprising details. After all the interviews the team gathered together and discuss the long-term goal.

This design sprint is pretty much applied to any type of the project and its success is predicated on getting the right team in place and identifying the right challenge so it’s not too broad and setting aside the time and effort to focus on the problem obviously you can’t run every decision through a sprint design cycle but it can accelerate the key decisions and set your project on the right path.

To wrap up, I would like to say that I am very grateful that I got a chance to facilitate Digital Wellbeing Sprint. It was really a joy and amazing to team up and work with the whole tutor crew: Yash, Viljami, Arifa, Liisa, Laura, and the most supportive and focused Tiina. Thank you to all our teachers Merja Lahdenperä, Päivi Mantere & Jarmo Sarkkinen, and a special thank you to the hardworking and encouraging Elena Howlader.

Sincerely, Ashrika Agarwal

Arifa’s DWS journey

Digital Wellbeing is an intensive course where students from 3AMK – Haaga-Helia, Laurea and Metropolia Universities of Applied Sciences work together to build digital solutions for health care service providers. Digital Well-being sprint is based on the book called The Design Sprint book written by ​​Jake Knapp. Design Sprint is a 5 day process but DWS (Digital Wellbeing Sprint) modified the process for 7 days. 

The process was deep and intensive where the facilitators directed the students to perform specific tasks. On the first day, the goal was to get introduced with each other, process and the tools which will be used, for example, Miro. On the first day, the sprint purpose was made clear to everyone, rich discussions occurred, mapping of challenges, and clearly defining which parts of the problem would be resolved in that sprint. Tutor Laura gave us a short and sweet tutorial on using Miro as an application, which helped the students who had never used Miro before. The next day, we defined solutions to the problems that were stated a day before. It was more of a day where we collected ideas and documented how we aim to solve the problem. The third day was about sketching, where the students doodled and wrote down rough ideas. During that same day, each one of the team members went through each other’s design and voted the best one. I must say that each sketch looked well polished and well designed. The fourth day we learnt about creating prototypes, and our team designed prototypes using Figma. There were a bunch of girls who were familiar with Figma, which helped them to do much in a short amount of time. The fifth day was the day to test the prototype, the students interviewed a set of people which in our case was lab technicians. The interview day was a success, as the students received good feedback from the testers, but yes it was a long day. Then came the last day, “The pitching day”. On this very day, all the groups presented their very own solution to the challenges. All the company representatives were present on this day.  

When I reflect back to the sprint days, I remember all the hard work we as facilitators put in to accomplish the Design sprint days. Making preparations, deciding on what has to be done so that we have a smooth flow during the sprint. We all facilitators read the book wherein description for each task was given in more detail for each day. 

What I learned from the sprint is, a problem can be solved and tested using the Design sprint in just 5 days rather than developing the whole solution and seeing if that works or is accepted by the market. 

I had never been a facilitator. During this course I took the lead of facilitating the design sprint and providing direction to the team. Our sprint challenge was a very unique one. We were supposed to understand the process followed by a company and create a web prototype for it.  

Some of the tips for the people who aim to become facilitators in the next sprint is read the book, watch the videos of the sprint book, take one day at a time and ask your facilitator team if something is unclear. It is easy to get overwhelmed and get tensed, but the facilitator team will always be there for your support. The facilitator should know the process well or it can be overwhelming to direct the students during the DWS journey. 

All the very best to the people handling Digital Well-being sprint the next year. It is a journey to trust the book and follow the process. 

About the author: Arifa is a Software Engineer with 5+ years of experience. She has experience building desktop applications, web based application and mobile application using various technologies. She is currently up-skilling herself in Cloud Computing (AWS). More about Arifa can be found here.

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. 

What were the key learnings from the Digital Wellbeing…

Digital Wellbeing Sprint 2022 (DWS 2022) is over and now it is time to make some reflections of the journey together with the Sprint. DWS is seven-days online event following closely the Google Ventures Design Sprint Methodology created by Jake Knapp (Knapp, 2016). 

My Sprint journey began back in February 2022 as I registered for tutoring the DWS 2022. Our dedicated team of tutors coming from the 3UAS (Universities of Applied Sciences of Haaga-Helia, Laurea and Metropolia) planned the event in our (bi)weekly meetings during March until May together with the project manager of DWS. 

So, from the viewpoint of the facilitator, what would be the key takeaways? 

📌 Preparation is the key

As a tutor, know your schedule, tasks, and tools you are going to use during the week. It makes your life so much easier when you have a good understanding on all of those. In addition to the book written by Knapp, also YouTube has good number of videos related to the Google Ventures Design Sprint that you can easily utilize. 

📌 Be flexible

Although preparation is important, facilitator should also have flexibility to change plans on the go. As the Sprint is conducted in digital settings, there are many things that may happen as technology and applications are fragile and sometimes, they act in mysterious ways. For instance, there may be power failures, internet connections may be down, or computer may not be able to run all the needed programs and software. 

📌 Use visuals for energizing the participants

As the Sprint is conducted in digital surroundings, visuals are playing crucial role in communication between people. Visuals can be used cheering and motivating people as well as creating cohesiveness among the group. This can be done by adding different backgrounds on your Zoom, wearing something colorful/funny and sharing emojis, among other things.

📌 Breaks, breaks, breaks

The Sprint experience can be so engaging that you quite easily forget to have your breaks. Therefore, it is good idea to schedule those breaks. And during those breaks you should get up from your chair, have snacks and keep yourself hydrated preferably with water.

📌 Learning about yourself and being part of an agile team

I truly recommend participating in Sprints when given an opportunity to do so. It really pushes you to think, ideate, learn, and form a remote team in a very short period of time. In my opinion, the best outcome of the Sprint is that you learn so much about yourself. This is certainly a valuable lesson that you cannot place a price tag. Participating also provides you well-valued experience on digital facilitation that is in high demand on job markets nowadays.

All in all, it has been quite an honour to be part of the digital community that is this diligent and determined to get things done and help businesses innovate new service solutions within such a short time frame! 

References: 

Knapp, J. 2016. Sprint. Simon & Schuster.

Photo. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-draw-a-light-bulb-in-white-board-3758105/

This blog was written by Laura Parviainen-Vilo, facilitator in Digital Wellbeing Sprint 2022. Laura is currently studying for an MBA in Service Innovation and Design in Laurea University of Applied Sciences.

How to solve a Problem fast and efficient using…

Have you ever wondered if you can solve big complex problems and test new ideas in just a few days? Too good to be true? Let me help you to understand. Designer Jake Knapp created the five-day process at Google ventures in order to help Google initiatives and investments prototype, and validate ideas as rapidly and effectively as possible. Entrepreneurs constantly face tough decisions and their outcome won’t be realized until months of effort have passed, the five days sprint is designed to iterate through these decisions and test different alternatives in a very compressed timeframe before even a Minimum Viable Product the Sprint methodology shortcuts months of debate and development case study an example from the book is when Blue bottle coffee wanted to build its online store a project that would take a long time to require years of refinement but the initial direction would be crucial and that’s where the five days sprint came in. First, the Blue Bottle coffee team mapped out the online purchase process of a customer and refined it with the feedback from experts then they came up with three competing designs prototype all of them using keynote, and presented them to the potential customers based on the feedback the team actually eliminated the most favored design.

The Digital Wellbeing Sprint which is organized by 3UAS (Haaga-Helia, Laurea, and Metropolia) is a seven days sprint that starts with the team building at the beginning of the sprint and ends with the pitching session. Digital Wellbeing Sprint is designed to solve the problems that have high stakes and to test out the business that you have and it only includes the method that is absolutely essential for your business.

Each day in the sprint revolves around a specific topic mapping a target, sketching competing solutions, deciding the best, prototyping the realistic, and testing with the target customers. The well-defined time constraint makes it easier to focus on the most important aspects and get things done.

Design Sprint process

Here is how the Sprint works:

• Target: The team maps out in great detail the customer journey then invites experts to provide their input and finally decides on what well-defined objective, one thing that is critical and can be tested.
• Sketch: The team sketches out the possible solutions without criticizing or making any decisions all ideas are sketched out and considered like a brainstorming session.
• Decide: Once all the possible solutions are made the team decides each member goes around and votes with a sticker on the ideas white-bordered around the room the winning idea gets carefully storyboarded in even greater detail.
• Prototype: Now the storyboard gets converted into a prototype in the most efficient way possible you don’t need a code or manufacture anything figure out the absolute minimum that will give your customers an accurate representation of the idea so they could provide feedback.
• Test: Finally the idea in any competing versions is put to the test a good interviewer guide customers through the idea without imposing any biases all while the team watches the reaction and takes notes at the end of the day they compare notes and boil them down to lessons of the Sprint.

This design sprint is pretty much applied to any type of the project and its success is predicated on getting the right team in place and identifying the right challenge so it’s not too broad and setting aside the time and effort to focus on the problem obviously you can’t run every decision through a sprint design cycle but it can accelerate the key decisions and set your project on the right path.

To wrap up, I would like to say that I am very grateful that I got a chance to facilitate Digital Wellbeing Sprint. It Was really a joy and amazing to team up and work with the whole tutor crew: Ashrika, Viljami, Arifa, Liisa, Laura, and the most supportive and focused Tiina. Thank you to all our teachers Merja Lahdenperä, Päivi Mantere & Jarmo Sarkkinen, and a special thank you to the hardworking and encouraging Elena Howlader. It was really a wonderful experience with you all and especially with all the women as this digital well-being sprint won’t be possible without women’s (Super) power. Gratitude.

Sincerely,

Yash Agarwal

I’m a Team Lead, chef, dream achiever, motivational speaker, and soon-to-be leadership coach. My Journey began in 2015 and since then I have enjoyed many different positions throughout my career in product strategy, planning, development, testing, and technical sales. I enjoy meeting new people and hearing new perspectives. Reach out if you want to talk to me about emerging tech, and creating software products.

My top tips for a successful Sprint

Wow! What a ride this has been. As I am writing this, the Sprint is nearing its end. On one hand, it seems like forever has passed because so much has happened. On the other hand, time has flown by incredibly fast. 

Looking back, I had some facilitating experience and experience in organizing and run-throughs of seminars and workshops. But I had never taken part in a sprint prior to this. I was nervous and excited and wanted to make sure that I had everything I needed in aiding a team to achieve their goals and being able to focus on each step. As I am a process-oriented person, I want to share my practical tips for staying on top of my duties as a facilitator. 

First, we had a lot of tools:  

• The book gives a full view of the Sprint process with background, examples, stories, tools, and instructions. But it is a lot to take in.  

• To split the contents of the book into more manageable pieces, we tutors had a daily schedule prepared for the whole sprint – thanks to previous years tutors for a great template. In addition to the tasks for the teams, the schedule included what instructions were to be given and by whom, when to have breaks, and what other things needed to be done to keep the spirits high. 
• Since the sprint was done virtually, we used Miro-boards instead of white-boards or post-it notes. With the boards, we had all the days and tasks laid out including the instructions for each section. We had all the information available but could focus on the things that were relevant at the time. 

Using these resources, I could prepare for each day and each task. Each morning I looked through the book, schedule and Miro, focusing only on the relevant parts for the day. Each evening, I eyed through what was to happen the next day. Having this approach, I started each day with confidence and was prepared to answer any questions that the team would have.  

I had all these tools open on my computer during the sprint, plus also the Zoom-meeting where everything happened and a WhatsApp chat with my fellow-tutors. In addition, I always had a piece of paper so I could take notes on everything that I found relevant from things being said, things that I should remember to tell the team or at what time we should be done with the next task. 

The most valuable thing that helped me, were my fellow tutors.  Being tutor, I got to experience two wonderful journeys – the journey that my team has gone through together, and the journey that we tutors have had behind the scenes.  

As a conclusion, if you ever get the chance to take part in something like this, go for it! My top tips for success are to be prepared, to be confident and to remember, you are part of a team. I wish all the best to everyone I have gotten to meet during this process and good luck to future sprinters. 

About the author:

A people person with a passion for:  
<3 digital platforms for sharing information and working together  
<3 process development & project management 
<3 reports, documents & excel sheets 
Let’s network https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiinameurman/  

What to expect from the Sprint?

As the Digital Wellbeing Sprint 2022 is almost behind us, and the students are preparing to pitch their solutions to the partners today, we thought it would be a good time to share with you some company feedback we received from previous partner companies that we contacted one or more years after they participated in the Sprint and asked them to share some of their experiences and advice for future students and partners participating in the Sprint.

For HIVpoint and Coach4Pro working with students on the previous sprint was smooth and effective. It provided valuable ideas for making improvements and deciding their next course of action, and one of them even hired one person from the student team to work on their project.

In their opinion preparation and an open mind are the keys to a successful Digital Wellbeing Sprint experience! 

Sami Tuunainen from HIVpoint 

What were your expectations for the sprint? 

We had quite little expectations. We were curious and open minded and hoped that we get some benefits of it to our project.   

Did it meet your expectations, or did you reach your goals?   

We met more than we expected. From sprint, we got quite a clear picture of how to continue with our project and how to reach our goals.   

What was the outcome of the sprint for your company? Did you find it useful?   

Yes, it was useful. We actually hired one of the students to work with our project.   

What was your general experience with the sprint and working with the students?   

It was great. Sprint was effective way to work and got new ideas.   

What would you say to the new companies and students taking part in the Sprint?   

Be open-minded. Just go with a flow with students, and give them tools and info for the sprint. Enjoy!

Mikko Koskela from Coach4Pro 

What were your expectations for the sprint? Did you have any concrete goals? 

Our goals were to get outsiders’ views of our own designs and our partner’s services. 

Did it meet your expectations, or did you reach your goals? 

Teams were meeting expectations and we got good input for our development. 

What was the outcome of the sprint for your company? Did you find it useful? 

We collected all the feedback and analysed those in our company. Based on DWS teams and customers feedback/ideas we were able to improve our products as well our partners were able to do improvements for their part. 

What was your general experience with the sprint and working with the students? 

We have been lucky to got teams with ideas and wide knowledge to work on our projects. Teams had both fresh young students as well as those who have already work experience. Working with them have been smooth. 

What would you say to the new companies and students taking part in the Sprint? 

Companies please take time to prepare properly. This will ensure that you will get good result out of the sprint. Student do not be afraid to bring up out of box ideas – many times fresh view even some which sounds not so practical will trigger thinking issues from completely new angle.