SPRINT TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Abstract

Students of today should learn and see a need for change and recognize the importance of a shift towards a more sustainable business world, design and engineering is an important piece of this equation. The phenomenon of design and engineering is claimed to be in the complex domain. In the complex domain long-term plans are not predictable and the methods used to lead this process should be agile and cope with the emergent nature of the phenomenon. Short sprints pulled from a backlog is one of these methods and could therefore be argued to be relevant for teaching design and engineering students. In an attempt to learn and practice this method, the teaching of a design and engineering course at the master level is using this method directly in the teaching. Combined with the principle of “one piece flow” the students must every week prepare homework for their class, then followed by relevant classroom teaching and ending the day with a 3-hour graded sprint. The sprints are done either as an individual task or as a group task, depending on the learning objective. The students report less waste and higher learning effects, an impression also shared by the teachers. Let us sprint toward a sustainable future.