Design sprints integrating agile and design thinking: A case study in the automotive industry

Henreaux, Emilie [UCL] Noutcha, Michel [UCL] Phan-Ngoc, Tina [UCL] Kieffer, Suzanne [UCL]

This paper is a case study reporting on a series of design sprints carried out by four master students of UCLouvain in the context of a 3-month internship which took place at AWTC-Europe (Belgium), a company whose core-business is the automotive industry. The expression “design sprints” refers to an iteration of the 5-phase design thinking (DT) process: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test. The goal of the internship was to test-and-refine prototypes for road sign assistance and adaptative cruise-control technology. The design sprints involved methods such as survey research, field observation, customer journey mapping, six hats, video prototyping and user tests. The contribution of this case-study is twofold: (1) render an account on how an industrial organization implements DT: from the processes that are actually executed to the selection of supporting methods and tools to the use of the DT outcomes within the organization; (2) investigate whether and how the outcomes of such design sprints are being evaluated, questioned or criticized.