The Kick-Off — Sprint 1 at DSS
TL;DR
- We’re Team Brainwash, working at the Digital Society School in Amsterdam from Sep ’18 until Feb ‘19
- Team Brainwash consists of three wonderful people:
- Immanuel from Germany (Coder)
- Crystal from China (Designer)
- Merijn from the Netherlands (Researcher) - The team is being coached by Abdo, an experienced facilitator
- Project: Improving the treatment and diagnosis of headache/migraine patients in the Netherlands
- Process: Exploring problem context through research, ideation and prototyping
- Results: Doctor-Patient Relationship and Technology will be the main focus points to create a first intervention
Introduction
As the title already mentions, this article will be “The Kick-Off” of a series of articles being published by Team Brainwash. Team Brainwash has been initiated at the Digital Society School in Amsterdam, and is working on a challenging project revolving around data-driven healthcare.
The team consists of three multi-disciplined and diverse people. Immanuel, from Germany, has a background in Digital Media but is focusing on the coding side of the story. Crystal, from China, has been immersed in the world of User Experience (UX) and User Interface Design (UI) and has practical input from an interest in Architecture. Merijn, from the Netherlands, tries to combine Business, IT and Design as his way of exploring the research environment.
For the next six months, the team will work on the problem in close cooperation with their coach Abdo Hassan, who has also has been the initiator of the data-driven health project. Furthermore the project is accompanied by partner organisations out of the field of technology and health - both data-driven software companies as well as neurologists and patients with migraine and headaches are represented. With these different perspectives in mind, the team tries to find a solution which will smoothen the treatment and diagnosis process for both the patients and the doctors.
This article will describe the first attempts in becoming familiar with the project context and will take you on the journey of the first three weeks of team Brainwash’ existence and their process.
Methods
Digital Society School (DSS) uses a design methodology called SCREAM! which combines the principles of Design Thinking and Scrum. By this combination, projects are set up with the design principles in mind, while still offering the structure of an agile project.
Sprints consists of three weeks after which a tangible result has to be presented at the end with clients or partners.
For more information, check:
https://bit.ly/2Ejil8E (All credits go to the Digital Society School, formerly known as Media Lab Amsterdam)
The First Sprint
The First Sprint of the project was trying to familiarize with the problem the team has been faced with. Right from the start, the Sprint Planning showed that the context is complex and multi-leveled. This complexity arises from a multitude of stakeholders, with different forms of communications and expectations, in a public sector environment, resolving around an issue which is important for everyone: health.
To obtain a grip on the actual issues, the team decided firstly to establish a strong team culture. By use of a range of tools and methods, good conversations and some laughter, a strong team culture was established. The presence of this culture will enable communication and co-ordination once discussion or conflict arises. The final paragraph of the article will describe a few of the research methods and tools used per face.
Following up from establishing the culture, the team immersed themselves in research. This input was needed to reach the goal of the first sprint, which was set up as:
“Creating a problem statement through simulation, which embodies the stakeholder, literature, and user perspective”.
This sprint goal guided the team in the process of understanding the problem through different perspectives, creating an interactive simulation to fully capture the essence of the problem and synthesize all findings into one concise problem statement.
Stakeholder Perspective
The stakeholder perspective is essential in Brainwash’ project context, while its diverseness and structure is already causing complexity within the current system. Therefore, the team needed to create an overview of this complexity in order to see the relationships and interests at play in this environment. One of the ways of doing this, was by creating a stakeholder map which gave a classified view on the different actors within the system. Other methods can be found in the final paragraph.
Literature Perspective
Once an overview of the involved parties was created, these finding were fueled by insights from professional and academic literature. This phase is difficult to visualize or quantify, while a lot of intangible work as reading and processing is being done, however the team wanted to share and discuss their insights in a centralized place.
By input of Crystal, Brainwash got introduced to Mural. Mural is the equivalent of a digital whiteboard which allows you to gather, move and play around with post-its. This tool was perfect for the method which was used to summarize the insights: the affinity wall. In our experience, this method helped greatly to synthesize and cluster the different thoughts and ideas which arose from the literature phase. These findings, combined with the ones of the user perspective, were the basis for the recreation of the problem statement.
User Perspective
Given the literature insights, user research in the forms of interviewing and attending conferences was used to truly empathize with the Doctor and the Patient within the problem context. These actors were identified as the main stakeholders following from the stakeholder mapping and therefore the process focused on grasping a tighter grip on their perceived experience. These insights were frequently updated within Mural, while a User Journey Map for Patients has also been created.
Simulation
Combining the different insights from the different perspectives, it was chosen to create a simulation which guided the team in discovering the problem statement and allowed participants to empathize and give input on the problem.
Short phases of brainstorming, validating and iterating over the simulation, brought the team towards a modified version of the User Journey Map for Patients. It was chosen to let participants, in the peer review pitches, choose their way of dealing with a migraine or headache attack. This was done by letting them fill out their own version of the User Journey Mapping.
Problem Statement
The final sprint goal was to create a problem statement by the use of the aforementioned phases and perspectives. All of the learnings and insights gathered over the process have been used to redefine and re-imagine how the problem should be approached. From the findings, the team will focus after the first sprint on:
“Improving the perceived experience of doctors and patients, while consecutively empowering the patient in their self-care.”
This angle has been chosen, while the research has found that most of the conflicts are pointing towards the doctor-patient relationship. This also resonates with finding in academic and professional literature, which recently started to describe the shift from disease-centered care, towards patient-centered care.
Team Brainwash checks out. We’re looking forward for the second sprint and hope to keep you updated!
Methods Used
Team Building
- Team contract
- Stinky Fish
- Project Point of Departure
- Team Bonding Experience
- The power of conversation
Stakeholder Perspective
- Stakeholder Mapping
- Stakeholder Classification
- Stakeholder Interviews
- Power-Interest Matrix
Literature Perspective
- Desk research
- Interviewing team members
- Internal presentations by team members on different topics
- Insight clustering
- Affinity Wall (comparable to IDEO’s method of “Bundling Ideas”)
User Perspective
- Interviews
- User Journey Map (comparable to the method of the Customer Experience Map)
- Affinity Wall (comparable to IDEO’s method of “Bundling Ideas”)
- Persona (considered)
Simulation
- Brainstorming
- Prototype
- Energizers
- User Journey Map → Simulation
Problem Statement
- How might we
- Dot-voting
Attended Events
Special Thanks
From VNHC (Vereniging van Nederlandse Hoofdpijn Centra): Dr. Emile Couturier, Dr. Henriette Bienfait
From SAP: Cefas Dam
From DSS: Emma Beauxis-Ausselet, Felipe Escobar Vega, Carlo De Gaetano
The Digital Society School is a growing community of learners, creators and designers who create meaningful impact on society and its global digital transformation. Check us out at digitalsocietyschool.org.
