Despite everyone's good intentions, hard work and solid ideas, too many teams end up creating products that no one wants, no one can use, and no one buys. But it doesn't have to be this way. Agile and design thinking offer a different--and effective--approach to product development, one that results in valuable solutions to meaningful problems. In this course, you’ll learn how to determine what's valuable to a user early in the process--to frontload value--by focusing your team on testable narratives about the user and creating a strong shared perspective.
Agile Meets Design Thinking
Agile Meets Design Thinking
This course is part of multiple programs.
Instructor: Alex Cowan
171,317 already enrolled
Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
4.7
(3,448 reviews)
Beginner level
Recommended experience
Flexible schedule
Approx. 9 hours
Learn at your own pace
94%
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What you'll learn
How to evaluate and explain the relevance of concepts and practices from the agile development methodologies
How to create a strong shared perspective and drive to value using design methods like personas and problem scenarios
How to diagnose what software will be valuable to the user and how to test your ideas using agile user stories and prototypes
How to facilitate narrative collaboration with user stories and prototypes
Skills you'll gain
Details to know
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Assessments
3 assignments
Taught in English
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There are 4 modules in this course
The agile practices that deliver excellent product are well understood, but they take focus, energy, and confidence to apply. This week, we’ll identify what’s hard about creating excellent products and how agile can help. We'll begin with a discussion of the Agile Manifesto- what motivated it and how it defines agile. Then we’ll get into the practical part- the problems agile solves, how to focus your time and energy, and how you’ll know if your practice of agile is working.
What's included
16 videos2 readings1 assignment1 discussion prompt
The best way to avoid building something nobody wants is to start with somebody in mind. In the design world, we talk about that "somebody" through a ‘persona’. Personas and problem scenarios (aka 'jobs-to-be-done') focus development on driving toward a valuable outcome for your user vs. just generating output. In this module, you’ll learn to focus your work by developing personas, problem scenarios, and alternatives using best practices from design thinking.
What's included
10 videos1 assignment1 discussion prompt
Now we’re going to transition from drafting personas and hypothesizing user needs to testing those assumptions and translating what you’ve learned into agile user stories. We’ll step through how you create an interview guide to ask your users the right questions and then we’ll dive into agile user stories. User stories are a standard feature of agile and serve as a day-to-day focal point for driving to value.
What's included
16 videos1 discussion prompt
The agile user story is your day-to-day focal point for making sure you’re building something valuable for your user. It’s how you discuss that within your team and how you anchor your subsequent testing. In this module, you’ll learn how to facilitate the creation and use of stories within your team.
What's included
12 videos1 assignment1 peer review
Instructor
Instructor ratings
4.8 (705 ratings)Offered by
Recommended if you're interested in Design and Product
University of Virginia
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4.7
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Showing 3 of 3448
TD
5
Reviewed on Oct 23, 2017
Rich and well-structured content about Agile and Design Thinking, shows how to approach and include personas that will somehow be touched by the solution being created, and deliver outcomes to them.
AG
5
Reviewed on Jun 24, 2020
Thank you for this course. I get know experience and knowledge in using different kinds of online tools which are useful and effective. I'll use some of them during my lessons. And lots of thanks.
PH
5
Reviewed on Aug 29, 2020
Great course. It's not too self-contained, however. I understand a lot of the material makes more sense in the context of later courses in the specialization. Cowan is an understanding teacher.
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