Monday : 

On Monday, we stared at the end and focused on agreeing on our long-time goal. We had just met the group, so it started off a little bit slow and quiet in our group. But we quickly overcame that and worked together well. Then we looked at what problems we could run into, and from that, we formed the key questions.  

Tuesday:

On Tuesday, we focus on solving the problems. We talked about it all together, and then we worked individually on making sketches to see what journey the customer will go through and where on the journey we wanted to put the most focus on. 

Wednesday : 

On Wednesday morning, we went through the different sketches every team member had made. We had all the sketches on display, kind of like we would’ve been in an art museum. We had a vote to help us decide on which solution (or solutions) to select. Next, we combined our ideas and created the “winning solution”. In the afternoon we created a storyboard about the solution we came up with. 

Thursday: 

In the morning, we started with a warm-up activity called “Marshmallow challenge”. Our job was to elevate the piece of marshmallow as high as possible. Unfortunately, we achieved the second rank with 56 centimetres. After that, we allocated the work to the team members. From 10.30 a.m, we started forming the prototype, including the front page of the website and a video. 

Friday: 

On Friday, we tested our prototype in our interviews. We had the opportunity to interview five people and had them test and see our prototype. We did this through zoom or teams platforms. In this way, we had the opportunity to see where improvements could be done and analyse the patterns of the responses. After the interviews and lunch, we were ready to show our results to the Dalsland Canal representative. Each team showed their prototype, answered questions and got feedback from teachers. By that SPRINT-IN-DAL week was successfully finished and we all together enjoyed our last farewell dinner at Stadshotell’s restaurant. 

Team 6

Annina

Karen

Jana

Oanh

Kristina

Day 1 Monday  

We started off by introducing the sprint in general. Then we set a long-term goal for the problem. After that, we looked at the pessimistic side of things, what would happen if things didn’t go the way we wanted them to. Then we got to meet with the client and have an in-depth discussion about the Dalsland canal. All in all, we ended the day by mapping out the three phases of our solution for the client’s problem.

As a team, we collaborated well as we had a lot of ideas which were similar or could be combined with each other. We found out that we had a lot in common like we are all extroverts, we love to travel, we are all Europeans etc. Due to all of us being extroverts, we were enthusiastically sharing our ideas along the way and in some cases, we missed out on listening until the end, however, we noted it is something that we could improve on as a team. During the different stages of the tasks, we supported and helped each other in understanding the tasks better.

 In our opinion, our time management was good in completing each task and the flow of ideas was very enriched. The result at the end of the day did not surprise us but we were more surprised that the client came up with a different problem. Which meant the work that we did was not relevant anymore. The client gave us a different problem statement than the one that we initially had.

Anella

Agust

Veselina

Melisa

Vera

Day 2 Tuesday 

The beginning of the cold chilly Tuesday, our team was seated with a warm cup of coffee or tea as we were waiting for our facilitators to start. On Monday we did the heavy work, so Tuesday passed by more like a breeze. The facilitator highlighted that Tuesday was the day we work together but alone.

We started by spending 30 minutes sketching for the lightning demo. For the first time, the hallway was so quiet, and everyone was focused. Some of the teams went somewhere alone to do the work and many sat collectively together in silence. You could hear keyboard tapping and people breathing as time was passing by. Everyone was quietly sketching their ideas.
The facilitator finally snapped everyone out of the zone and gave us 3 good minutes to explain our ideas to our teams. Team 2 had fantastic ideas and we all collectively were on the same page. Many of our ideas were inspired by the already existing boat hobby industry and big tourist canal spots. Afterwards, our stomach was growling from burning energy from thinking, so we were happy when it was time for lunch!

Afterwards, I cannot tell you what our team did because we all focused on our work on our own. The facilitator gave us 40 minutes to think about notes and ideas. Some of us plopped in our headphones and zoned in for the work. When the timer ran facilitator instructed us to do crazy 8 which stressed out some of us. We had to sketch our ideas in eight stages, and we were instructed to do a minute per stage.
After the stressful eight minutes were over, we got to individually make our solution sketch.

Thankfully we had plenty of time as the deadline was a couple of hours. We made our solutions in peace with each person slowly turning in their work to the facilitator.

Day 3 Wednesday 

What was the theme of the day?

The third day of the SPRINT is for deciding. In that phase, the team decides on the idea to go forward with.

How did you collaborate together as a team?

Excellent teamwork. We did things together as a group and found our harmony.

What did the team learn about the task, and how did the team carry out the tasks?

We learned to be collaborative with team members and respect their ideas. We also learned the techniques used in SPRINT and put them into practice after having looked them up in the book. We look forward to using the theories and techniques in our future work. 

What skills did you use or improve today?

We improved our teamwork and strategic thinking and planning skills. 

Were you surprised at the results?

We were surprised that we could take some things from every idea and combine them. Also that everything worked so smoothly

Who is in the team and what is the team name?

The team name is cruise and breeze

Brigitta from Estonia

Andris from Latvia

Vijay singh from Finland

Charlotta from Finland

Katrín from Iceland

Day 4 Thursday

Our main goal for Thursday was to build a prototype. We had half an hour warm-up to start the day. On our table, we had 20 spaghetti sticks, one marshmallow, 1m of string and 1m of tape. Our exercise was to build the tallest possible structure in 18 minutes with the marshmallow on the top. At the end, the structure was supposed to stand on the table without us supporting it. It was quite hard for us because we did not think how heavy the marshmallow was, so in the end, it did not stay on the top properly. We think that this exercise highlighted the importance of prototyping and iterative design.

After that, we moved on to our main subject which was to build an actual prototype. For that, we had to pick the right tools and divide the roles within the group. It was really easy for us, as we understood already in the last few days, which role suits each person. We had a couple of hours to work on our prototypes. Once they were kind of ready, we did a test interview to get ready for the real interviews that we have to do on Friday.

As a team we collaborated really well, everyone understood their tasks and gave their best. We think it was the busiest day, but in conclusion, we finished our prototype and we are excited to present it tomorrow.

Day 5 Friday

It was rewarding to show our prototype to people and get feedback because it made it feel so much more real.

Groups had to present their prototypes to the client after lunch and it was very intriguing to see what others had done during this week. Every group had 10 minutes to pitch their idea/prototype to the client. Afterwards, other students had the opportunity to ask questions. The client joined us for the presentations and asked questions which was nice because we felt that we were listened to and our suggestions were taken into account.

The presentations were the last part of the SPRINT challenge. After the presentations, we said goodbye to the client who was very grateful for our work and said she got lots of good ideas she could use to solve their problem.

Then it was time for dinner – the last one we had together this week which was quite a bittersweet feeling because we have made friends along the way and knowing that we will see each other for (probably) last time feels quite saddening. At the same time, everyone is excited that we have gone through this journey and are excited to return home and keep going on with our studies with a pocket full of experience and memories.

Our team was friendly and hard working. Overall we thought we divided the tasks evenly and got along well too. There weren’t any issues or arguments because we listened to each other and respected each other’s opinions. We had no problem doing the tasks and we usually did the group thinking together.

This project helped us develop efective group working skills and made us more open-minded because many ideas were flying around. It is very important to be able to be open to them and accept various ideas. We weren’t surprised about the results, we were very proud of them because we believe that it was so intense that we didn’t have a lot of time to just think and do nothing, and seeing our prototype at the end felt very rewarding.

We are very proud of ourselves and we are thankful for this opportunity!

Day 1 Monday  

Today was the start of SPRINT-week. We had our introductions yesterday (sunday) so today’s theme was mapping: both the client’s problem but also the end goal. 

As a team we collaborated with complete ease after a few minutes warm-up. We had no problem starting discussions and letting everybody take space for their opinions and questions. We found it very easy to socialize and are quite glad we all got put in the same group. 

Our first draft. Our Long-term goal for our client and the risks. 

As we said today was about mapping.  

Our first individual maps. 

We started the day with some more information about our client; the Finnish company Cesim. Cesim is a business simulation games company whose clientele focus is educators and corporate trainers. 

We had the opportunity to question both the CEO and his personnel in France, China and UK which gave us as teams the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the problem and obstacles to better adapt and rephrase our teams long time goals and risks.  

We used an application named Mural which will be our main tool through this week. 

No one in my team had used this before so throughout the day we perfected our skills and got used to handling Mural. We also improved our social skills as a team, our fast thinking and decision making as we always were on a time crunch. 

The results of the day weren’t surprising as we all came in with a pair of fresh eyes ready to soak up the information. We did feel a bit lost at times during the day as did the instructors but nothing stopped us from working on our parts. 

We were surprised how easy it was to get into a team thinking and supporting each other’s opinions. 

To complete today’s task we focus on working together as a team and both taking and letting teammates put up ideas and space during the passing of the day. 

To summarize the first day it was quite frustrating and confusing at the start, but as we got into the SPRINT-thinking we found it so motivating and fun. Many of us felt intimidated by the whole SPRINT day by day agenda, but as we got into it it was quite easy and motivating!  

I’ve added a few pictures of our progress and spitballing and how we made that into a Map with a goal, HMW question and a User. 

End of the day progress. Our first-draft map. 

Perceived by The Coffee addicts  

written by Luna Spariosu with commentary from the  

Team members: 

Axel Keil 

Luna Spariosu 

Tia Viitanen 

Linus Guseff 

Bergdís Rún Jónasdóttir 

Neda Jarasunaite 

Day 2 Tuesday 

Our team consists of six students: Undīne, Laure, Karel, Zahida, Stella and Noora and the team’s name is Mountain crew, because what we all have in common is that we like hiking, skiing, or snowboarding in the mountains.

Today was the second day of the SPRINT-week. We had our first day yesterday where we had to collaborate quite a lot, so today’s focus was on individual tasks.

We started the day with creating our own lightning demos and that was something we all enjoyed as we could be as creative as we wanted. Before the demo we all did research for inspiration, and the source of inspiration could be from any industry as taking examples from outside of our client’s industry could generate better ideas. The next step was for each person to present their ideas and we noticed that we all were not on the same direction anymore and that was really the first time it occurred in our group, but many discussions later we finally landed on a solution and a direction we all could agree on. 

After lunch, we were on our own to sketch an individual solution. We had all the information we needed from yesterday and this morning, and this afternoon was the time to really create something new. This process of gathering all our thoughts and knowledge that had been assimilated throughout the beginning of the week to sketch an innovative solution required a lot of energy. But surprisingly, it was quite quick. Believe it or not, 90 minutes is enough to go through the whole sketching process and here are the final solutions of today 😊

Day 3 Wednesday 

We first went to “Art museum” as teams. It was for reviewing the separate solutions from
yesterday one by one. We did it in silence so that other team member’s opinions would not
influence our decision making. This was before deciding on the sketch solutions from
yesterday:

 The heat map was a stage, where sticky (green) stickers were given in silence to mark the
interesting parts. Communication is not meant to influence the process in any way. When
giving stickers had started, this was the situation at some point:

 After lunch the Decider’s vote, “Supervote” from CEO of Cesim gives the last say with our
plans. It will give us direction on what we will be doing tomorrow in the prototyping stage.

We were asked valuable questions and received information from him and a few teachers, who came to listen to our presentation. The feedback gave us confirmation on how to proceed.

This was the individual part of starting a storyboard:

By this phase, all our individually made storyboards started to look complementary to each
other. That really made a difference when going in the next phase and illustrating the
storyboard. We were united as a team to collaborate on the storyboard content.
Here is our team’s final storyboard of the day, which we constructed together:

At the end of the day we will all have a Sprintinhel dinner together. What a nice way to end
the day! 🙂

Team Randos
Rokas Liutika
Maria Niemi
Tanveer Singh
Helena Vaikre