MG
Jan 8, 2022
I loved the whole specialization has a lot of benefits about product management from A to Z and especially this course was discussing every point in more detail for the whole specialization.
MB
Jan 29, 2019
Alex does an excellent job in structuring and delivering his courses. Definitely makes me want to continue educational opportunities with his courses offered and University of Virginia.
By Meghan C
•Jul 2, 2016
This course is not meant to stand alone as a single course, rather is a portion of a larger Agile Development course. I'm sure the information included is very informative, but it references information that was included in other courses. The first lessons start with diagrams that are not explained and terms that are not defined (which I presume were probably covered in the first course). Also plenty of references to information from other courses ("Previously we learned" "Remember the example").
Dropped the course, not that I didn't understand it, but rather it was not worth my time to play "catch-up" on my own. Suggest removing this course as a free-standing course, or revising to allow the data/lectures to stand on their own.
By Laura W
•Apr 10, 2022
Based on my personal experience, I would advise against taking this course.
The content is OK, but the delivery leaves something to be desired. Ironically for a course talking about agile and lean start up philosophies, this is delivered in the extremely old-fashioned way of having someone talk at you (also, if I'm honest, in a quite American waffle, which isn't particularly user-friendly for those whose first language isn't American English). Oh, that said, they do give you about 3 minutes of a ridiculous 'skit' to illustrate the point... But really nothing innovative or experimental at all here..!
However, much, much worse than that is the fact that it is a hotbed for people who want to 'scam' a qualification. There appears to be no vetting of 'students' whatsoever. The majority of the submissions that I was required to review were one and the same document (that is, exactly the same, not one word changed). Because I had to report them for plagiarism, this also meant that they don't count towards the total no. of peer reviews completed, meaning it's extremely difficult to finish the course and earn the certificate, as there are really no genuine submissions at all it seems. (The few I did manage to complete were mostly just copied and pasted from the internet). Pessimal experience, and the same goes for the related courses - Managing an Agile Team, Agile Analytics and Agile Meets Design Thinking.
Also, if you alert Coursera to this and / or ask how to complain, the 'customer help service' just repeats the same thing over and over regarding the plagiarism function and ignores the complaint request outright, every single time.
In my opinion this is disgusting for a course that is this expensive. Save yourself some time and hassle - best avoided.
By Oleg S
•Jun 26, 2017
I thought this was a very good practical course. It was challenging for me since I lack experience in software development industry, but I thought it gave me a very good framework.
By Rhea A D
•Mar 18, 2018
The course contains complete detailed information on Agile Testing. Users should make the best use of this course knowledge as now all the companies are now moving to Agile.
By Dion S B
•Feb 9, 2017
Provides a lot of good insight on getting new code to production in a fast, high quality manner. The course has help me focus on the deployment pipeline.
By Roberto L
•May 16, 2018
Agile course is well structured and teaching material
By Corwin L
•May 27, 2020
The change in specialization structure is very obvious still. There are multiple places that refer to a "previous course" that hasn't happened yet if you are following the new specialization. The course also feels a bit mishmashed together in places with frequent jumps between the main hypothesis driven development videos and the DevOps/Continuous delivery videos. These two topics do relate to each other but it feels weird taking the course when you just jump back and forth between the topics in a seemingly random fashion. There are also a few quiz questions that are very poorly worded, as in they aren't close to grammatically correct. I was still able to figure them out but they should be reviewed and updated. Finally this course is packed with the "interview" videos. These are good resources overall but it's awkward how there are like 6 different 5-10 minute videos with the same person in overlapping topics. I would have much preferred to just have longer interview videos that didn't duplicate the content as much and contained the full conversation with each person.
By François L
•Dec 27, 2017
Much overlap with the previous courses.
By Brittany L
•Jun 10, 2022
It is a really great course, and I'm learning a lot. I love the layout of the course and the assignments put a lot into perspective. My only complaint is the fellow learnings in peer-review assignments. Its frustrating trying to sift through incomplete or completely incorrect submissions to find something to review, to count toward the expected review count. Someone submitted a document that literally just said "test". But, whats more frustrating is the feedback I recieve from peers is just copy/paste "NICE" or "GOOD JOB" with no actual substance. I would like to build these skills and really hope at some point someone puts in the same energy I have in their reviews.
By Utkarsh K
•Sep 18, 2020
I think this course was well-structured. However, I believe this course was difficult compared to the previous one. It was long and challenging. Nevertheless, there was lots to learn. I would urge the faculty to please teach the content from Week 4 (on DevOps) in greater detail since the concepts were not as clear to me as I expected them to be. Thank you very much!
By Quentin A
•Nov 11, 2017
Excellent overview of testing in Agile. The course refreshed a lot of basic things for me, and reminded me about the importance of automation. The course also discusses how to tie in personas and use cases into testing, and why they should be driving the testing process (instead of the requirements list). Recommended.
By Erez M
•Apr 30, 2018
It might sound strange, but there are only a few good courses that really deal with agile development. This course is definitly one of them. I have enjoyed the format of this course and the journey it took me through. The live interviews with experts from the industry are a great bonus to the learning. Thank you Alex!.
By Jaime S
•Jun 25, 2018
This was a good course for developing a good foundation of CI/CD and testing practices in lean methodologies. This course incorporates a lot of interviews with experts in the industry, which I find helpful and informative. The exercises in the class were also helpful and applicable.
By Andreu M N
•Jul 14, 2018
I totally recommend this course. Well prepared, interesting interviews done by Alex to several professional with well-known reputation, good explanations, and well-prepared exercises. It’s totally worth to invest your time and money if you want to start in Agile.
By William R
•Feb 15, 2021
Great course about learning to frame everything you do as an experiment that you can test to make sure you're doing the right things, i.e. what creates value for your business/product. I learned a lot and gained a new mindset about approaching projects.
By Muhammad Y
•Aug 22, 2017
I could have not think of such a great courses offered by University of Virginia. Specially Alex is a great teacher. He tells us every thing perfectly with example from real life practitioners. I hope i would have a great career ahead.
By Kyle
•Mar 10, 2021
Super! Very interesting and these elements I am already applying! The only feedback I will say is I feel there are too many interviews with people in the field. I get the reasons as to why but I feel it's a bit too much sometimes.
By Sairam U
•Aug 13, 2020
I like the course especially because of the way the instructor, Alex Cowan delivers it. There are so many valuable points that have been covered, yet the course is not very lengthy at all. Proper value for time, money and effort.
By Namrata G
•Feb 9, 2021
It is a fabulous course. Alex take up the complex things and puts it in a very easy way which helps in understanding. The course is structured with detailed contents and objectives which that's clear and understanable.
By Yedidya A
•Jun 21, 2020
The revised course version is clearly improved.
Focusing on the main points and encouraging learner to implement the principles for their own projects as they understand will be the best for their team and organization.
By Muhammad G
•Jan 9, 2022
I loved the whole specialization has a lot of benefits about product management from A to Z and especially this course was discussing every point in more detail for the whole specialization.
By Matthew B
•Jan 30, 2019
Alex does an excellent job in structuring and delivering his courses. Definitely makes me want to continue educational opportunities with his courses offered and University of Virginia.
By Magnus S
•Jul 24, 2020
Alex delivers a concise message and provides real-world examples coupled with interviews with industry experts that assist in a deeper understanding of how and when to apply Agile,
By Nikolay N
•Nov 14, 2020
Great insights on how to test both the motivation and the usability! Gave me additional knowledge of Agile. It is better to take this course within the Specialization programme.
By Archana N .
•Apr 30, 2020
Alex has explained each and everything in a very simplified manner which helps us to understand the concept so well. It was a pleasure going through the course. Thanks a lot.