Posti – Design Sprint in Parcel Locker Development
Use design methods to speed up a project and find new ideas
“Big thanks for Symbio for facilitating the Design Sprint! Everyone was committed in working together, and we got a great boost to the project.” – Jari Paasikivi, Head of Process Technology, Posti
CHALLENGE
Symbio’s Design Sprint is a method where you create new ideas and test them rapidly. In this case client was a project consortium led by Posti, working together on a new parcel locker solution. The challenge was that project had been going on a while but there was need for facilitation of collaboration and acceleration of the process. Symbio was asked to facilitate Design Sprint to bring new drive to the project and find new ideas for the solution that the group was working on.
SOLUTION
On a frozen-cold January Monday we started a five-day Design Sprint together with the project group. Usually, Design Sprints are arranged with smaller (7-10 people) groups, but this time we had around 20 participants. This posed a challenge to facilitation, but with careful planning and modification of the Design Sprint schedule, we ended up with great results.
Walls were full of text, drawings and post-it notes as we 1) shared all the information about the challenge, 2) focused on certain part of the big picture, 3) created new ideas for solutions, 4) crafted two prototypes for testing, and 5) tested our prototypes with end-users. And in addition to this, as we had lots of people participating, we were able to work on parallel tracks producing technical architecture and business model for the new solution.
BENEFITS
The main outcomes of the Design Sprint were two prototypes and lots of other ideas that can be used later. Feedback from the testers revealed both the things that worked and things that weren’t that interesting in the prototypes. This information will guide the development of the solution in the next phase. Architecture and business model descriptions also help in defining which technologies should be used and understanding how the revenue model works.
Design Sprint participants were happy both with the results and how the workshop was organized. “Facilitator was very good and the used methods were spot on. I think the best thing was that the project was accelerated and all the project participants were involved in the process. I would recommend Symbio to other companies as well.”,Jari Paasikivi from Posti comments after the sprint. From the facilitators point of view, it was magical to see how well design methods work even though the group was so large. In Symbio, we have experience in applying design methods in very different situations, from three-hour workshops to five-day design sprints. This case was a good example of how design methods can be used in facilitating collaboration and giving a kickstart to a project.
26.01.2022 | References