Agile Meets Design Thinking

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/uva-darden-getting-started-agile

Introduction

### Course Review: Agile Meets Design Thinking on Coursera In today's fast-paced world, creating products that resonate with users is more crucial than ever. Many talented teams, despite their dedication and hard work, often find themselves delivering solutions that miss the mark, leading to frustration and wasted resources. The "Agile Meets Design Thinking" course on Coursera addresses this prevalent issue by merging the principles of Agile methodologies with the creativity and empathy of design thinking. This course provides a transformative roadmap for teams looking to produce not just functional products, but valuable solutions that solve real problems. #### Course Overview The course is designed to reshape your understanding of product development by emphasizing the importance of early user value determination. By integrating Agile practices with design principles, it prepares learners to create products that are desired, usable, and profitable. This approach significantly shifts the focus from mere output generation to delivering meaningful outcomes that satisfy user needs. #### Syllabus Breakdown The course offers an engaging structure, consisting of four key modules, each designed to build a strong foundation for integrating Agile and design thinking. 1. **Problems Agile Solves:** - This introductory module lays the groundwork by exploring the Agile Manifesto and its relevance in contemporary product development. It discusses common obstacles teams face in creating excellent products and illustrates how Agile practices provide clarity and focus. The emphasis here is on understanding the challenges and knowing how to measure the effectiveness of Agile implementations. 2. **Focusing Your Agile with Personas, Jobs-to-be-Done, and Alternatives:** - In this module, participants learn about the critical importance of starting with a user-centric approach. By developing personas and understanding "jobs-to-be-done," learners are guided to focus not just on output, but on achieving valuable outcomes. It equips teams with the tools to identify user needs early, reducing the likelihood of wasted effort on unwanted solutions. 3. **Getting to Great Agile User Stories:** - This section transitions participants from theoretical knowledge to practical applications by emphasizing the creation of Agile user stories. Learners are taught how to draft interview guides to engage users effectively, helping them to derive insights that can be transformed into actionable user stories. This module is pivotal as user stories serve as a cornerstone of Agile development, guiding teams in their daily tasks. 4. **Focusing on Customer Value with User Stories:** - The final module is centered around leveraging user stories to ensure that the team's development efforts are consistently aligned with user value. It emphasizes collaborative practices among team members to create and utilize these stories as a focal point for project discussions and testing processes. #### Who Should Take This Course? “Agile Meets Design Thinking” is particularly beneficial for: - Product Managers and UX Designers seeking to enhance their understanding of user needs in the Agile framework. - Team Leaders and Scrum Masters who want to foster a more user-centered approach within their Agile teams. - Anyone involved in product design or development processes who desires to create more customer-centric solutions. #### Recommendation I highly recommend "Agile Meets Design Thinking" for professionals who are eager to elevate their product development practices. The course effectively combines theoretical insights with practical applications, ensuring that participants can readily implement what they learn. The structured format promotes active engagement, making the learning experience not only informative but also enjoyable. In conclusion, whether you’re an experienced Agile practitioner or just starting, this course offers valuable insights into marrying Agile methodologies with design thinking principles. It empowers teams to focus on what truly matters: delivering products that resonate with users and address their real needs. With its comprehensive syllabus and practical approach, it is a worthwhile investment for anyone serious about enhancing their product development skills. Enroll today and take your product development process to the next level!

Syllabus

Problems Agile Solves

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.

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.

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.

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.