Design Sprints Integrating Agile and Design Thinking: A Case Study in the Automotive Industry

Abstract

This paper is a case study reporting on a series of design sprints carried out by three master students of Université catholique de Louvain in the context of a 3-month internship which took place in a company whose core-business is the automotive industry. Design sprint refers to an iteration of the design thinking (DT) process. The goal of the internship was to test-and-refine prototypes for road sign assistance and adaptive 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 paper is twofold: (1) render an account on how an industrial organization implements DT: from the processes that are executed to the selection of supporting methods 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.