Successful Digital Accelerator program speeds up innovation for KWF

About the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF)

The Dutch Cancer Society (KWF) is a large Dutch nonprofit whose goal is to beat cancer as soon as possible. To this end, KWF raises and channels funds into scientific research, influences policy and shares its knowledge of cancer and its treatment.

Ambition

Beyond ending cancer, KWF strives to provide added value to cancer patients and survivors in any way possible. To improve the quality of life of such persons, KWF needs access to domain experts, that is people who have – or have had – cancer.

Key Challenge

KWF came to Quint for help in designing a solution that would solve the challenge of connecting – and staying connected – with the over 800,000 current cancer patients and survivors in the Netherlands. The solution had to offer enough value to encourage its continuous use by patients and former patients, thus establishing a communication channel between them and KWF. Important criteria included: reach, loyalty, transparency and efficiency. In other words, the solution had to reach the target audience and foster the development of a relationship. In addition, the solution had to be transparent in its communication with users, and be scalable and efficient in terms of time and money.

The Approach

In response to this challenge, Quint offered KWF the Digital Accelerator – a 12-week pressure-cooker program involving a team of multidisciplinary talents that focuses on one strategic challenge and uses design thinking. The team was diverse in terms of nationalities, personalities and educational background which varied from business to front- and back-end software development.

Design thinking is a human-centric, solution-based approach to innovation. Its main stages are: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. Empathizing is done through direct contact with the target audience, empathy maps and persona exercises. Ideating is facilitated through various brainstorming exercises, while prototyping and testing are conducted with a lean mentality – i.e. you only build that which has been validated.

It is important to note that design thinking is not a linear process but rather an iterative one. Simply put, the team continuously strived to empathize with current and former cancer patients, and in doing so validate their assumptions and update their personas. Schedule-wise, the Digital Accelerator was divided into two main parts: a first phase in which research, ideation and weekly deliverables led to an agreed solution in the space of one month; and a second phase in which prototyping and testing took place.

Results

The final deliverables were a tested prototype and a business case. The prototype consisted of a mock-up and functionalities, and the business case provided an overview of how to scale the solution. The Digital Accelerator program has enabled KWF to come into closer contact with cancer patients and survivors, and obtain new insights into digital strategy and agile ways of working.