| Summary: | The aim of this thesis was to develop the course for beginner triathletes organized by the commissioning party, Oulu Triathlon & Cycling ry, a cycling and triathlon club in Northern Finland. The main goal was to develop a frame for the course that would facilitate the organization of the course in the future. Further objectives included acquisition of sufficient background information that would justify the suggested frame and the choices made in its development process. As a part of the process, training plans based on theoretical back-ground about training programming in triathlon, were created. The introduction explains that triathlon is an increasingly popular hobby in Finland and clarifies the term recreational athlete. The theoretical foundations of the thesis were obtained through literary review and proceed from the characteristics of triathlon as a sport to endurance training in general, moving on to training programming and more specifically training programming for beginner triathletes. Furthermore, motivation as well as coaching in a sports club are covered shortly from the theoretical viewpoint. A comprehensive description of service design as an approach along with the methods and tools used in service design is presented as the theoretical foundation for the used methodology. Service design methods and tools were utilized in a process, where the course organized in the spring of 2019 served as a source of important background information relevant for de-velopment of the course. The focus was in the definition and research phases in order to produce an extensive image about the participants’ needs and wishes. Questionnaires were sent to the course participants in the beginning and in the end, which revealed interesting points that could be applied directly into the course frame and suggestions for future operations related to course organization. A course frame and layout for the organization was created in the process. Visualizations about the customer journey were also made, both for understanding the current situation as well as finding solution ideas for the problems that had been discovered. The process showed that knowledge about the customer is essential also for developing services of a sports club if they wish to succeed. An important step towards continuous development is tracking how satisfied the customers are and to have suitable tools for doing that.
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