One of many anecdotal examples: A recent graduate sent me feedback describing how the Design Thinking strand built the skills that has helped her obtain her dream graduate job and has also been integral in early success:

Hi Trina, The design sprint is a great example to use in job interviews because it covers a large variety of questions (and how I got a fantastic grad position at IBM!). The experience I gained from doing design thinking in IT helped me to participate in the IBM Garage Bootcamp. This was, essentially, a mashup of a design sprint and a start-up weekend, a new enterprise offering described by IBM as “speed of a start-up, with the scale of an enterprise”. This bootcamp was offered to all business units across the IBM Asia-Pacific region (business sector, technical sector, etc). Across all Asia-Pacific, approximately 180 people applied to be in the bootcamp. I was merely a new starter. I had been at IBM for 3 weeks (in a highly technical role), and applied on a whim, detailing my experience with 3 years of design thinking and sprints. To my utter surprise, I was accepted as one of the eighty people who would be taking part in this bootcamp. Our team came third, and our solution has been presented to the client for possible implementation (very exciting!). This experience has been invaluable and depending on whether the client wants to move forward with our idea, it could be life-changing for everyone in our team!

Lesson 1 – Serendipity is your friend: Recognise potential opportunities in serendipitous moments. In 2015, the CEO of Townsville Airports Ltd mentioned in conversation a desire to hold a hackathon at the international terminal. I suggested we so a Design Sprint instead as the students needed to do this as part of their degree. This first off-campus sprint had such immense impact for all students/industry involved as you could see the intense engagement as soon as you walked into the airport (100% student engagement for 2 full days is an educator’s dream!).

Lesson 2 – Aim for bigger than big, even if you only reach big you are still winning: After the success of the 2015 DS, I recognised the start of something I could grow into something great. I knew we would have all 1st-3rd year students in 2017 so had already outgrown the terminal. Townsville Airports offered the use of a large hangar, which caused great excitement for the students. We have continued to grow bigger each year with more industry partners and students.

Lesson 3 – Growth pains/opportunities: The continuing growth of the DS poses real challenges/risks in costs. However, with growth there was the opportunity to expand ownership of the sprint beyond the university to the wider community. To manage the costs of the events, I created a sponsorship “chip-in” model that allows industry partners to contribute. The DS is now owned by the local community, the regional councils, participating industry partners and James Cook University.

The underlying key motivation in all my efforts is employability and work readiness of our graduates.

Continued expansion: I have plans to continue to grow the JCU Design Sprint by making it a full community owned event in collaboration with our local Councils and Chambers Commerce in Townsville and Cairns. By partnering with local government and business community, the sprint can scale in a sustainable way. This event continues to create interest from industry partners and companies not yet involved are requesting participation at the next event. This “buy-in” from industry is the key to growth and graduate employability as well as benefit to the North Queensland regional cities. Growing the collective intelligence: I intend on growing the number of disciplines/degrees. In future events, the Sprint will not only have all Information Technology/Computer Science students participate but other areas of knowledge (e.g., Engineering, Creative Arts, Business, Law, Health Science, etc) to truly tap into a collective intelligence for real entrepreneurial problem-solving and innovation.

Expand employability opportunities: There have been so many incredible ideas/solutions from each Sprint. However, the outcome of a Sprint is at most a low-fidelity prototype or mock-up. I am also working with the Councils and the Industry partners involved to dove-tail the sprint with internships so students can take their solutions to the next prototyping step or minimal viable product by co-developing with our partners.