1 : Course Overview

Design Thinking is about defining the right work, and agile is about doing the work right. Agile culture is about clarity of purpose and that all work directly supports the overall value delivered to markets and customers. This course will be a balance of understanding key principles, values, culture/behaviors, and practices of Agile and applying them through learning by doing with peers on an actual problem to create a prioritized backlog of work.

Learning Objectives

• understand why use agile to activate design thinking outcomes
• activate teaming practices such as social contract, daily stand-ups and retrospectives
• learn how an actual company applies agile to a market problem
• create personas and define a problem statement to three “who, what, wow “ statements
• break down statements into user stories and cluster into epics
• create a backlog of prioritized work

Learning Outcomes

• clearly understand how agile activates design thinking
• why active collaboration and transparency can increase communications and work output
• understand how to use a kanban and a GitHub repository
• understand specific agile practices, and how they work with established design thinking practices
• understand how to break down a design problem into a backlog of work that can be delivered to market

Course Outline (may change)

• Why use Agile to deliver solutions?
• Visit company integrating design thinking and practicing agile
• Personas and linking to problem statement
• Story statements to epics (body of work)
• Creation of a backlog of work and how to prioritize (work, showcase, retrospective)

Enrollment Restrictions

• Second year graduate students are preferred.