Agile Development in Practice (Project-centered Course)

About this course: This project-centered course provides a guided opportunity for you to practice your agile development skills. Using the venture design process that frames the four courses in this Specialization, you will apply agile processes to a project of your choice or to a provided venture concept. From persona, problem scenario, and user story development to designing user testing and product launch, you’ll practice leading an agile project. You’ll finish the course with a portfolio-building design brief that demonstrates your learning and specialized skills in agile product development. To get the most out of this course, we suggest you first complete the other four courses in the Agile Development Specialization (Getting Started: Agile Meets Design Thinking; Running Product Design Sprints, Managing an Agile Team, Testing with Agile). By the end of this course, you'll be able to: --Formulate foundational positioning statements --Create, refine and test actionable personas --Conduct user interviews and analyze the results --Determine a 'happy path' to quickly test user stories --Run motivation and usability testing and evaluate the results As a Project Management Institute (PMI®) Registered Education Provider, the University of Virginia Darden School of Business has been approved by PMI to issue 40 professional development units (PDUs) for this course, which focuses on core competencies recognized by PMI. (Provider #2122) This course is supported by the Batten Institute at UVA’s Darden School of Business. The Batten Institute’s mission is to improve the world through entrepreneurship and innovation: www.batteninstitute.org.

Created by:  University of Virginia

• Taught by:  Alex Cowan, Faculty & Batten Fellow

  Darden School of Business

Basic Info Course 5 of 5 in the Agile Development Specialization Level Intermediate Commitment 8 weeks of study, 4-5 hours per week Language English How To Pass Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. User Ratings 4.7 stars Average User Rating 4.7See what learners said Coursework

Each course is like an interactive textbook, featuring pre-recorded videos, quizzes and projects.

Help from your peers

Connect with thousands of other learners and debate ideas, discuss course material, and get help mastering concepts.

Certificates

Earn official recognition for your work, and share your success with friends, colleagues, and employers.

University of Virginia A premier institution of higher education, The University of Virginia offers outstanding academics, world-class faculty, and an inspiring, supportive environment. Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819, the University is guided by his vision of discovery, innovation, and development of the full potential of students from all walks of life. Through these courses, global learners have an opportunity to study with renowned scholars and thought leaders.

Syllabus


WEEK 1


Introduction to Your Project



Welcome to this project-centered course. By completing the four prerequisite courses, you are now ready to bring together all that you have learned and apply it to develop a product from charter to user testing. To get started, read the course overview and introduce yourself to your classmates. Next, watch the "Welcome and Getting Started" video lecture and then get to work developing your positioning statement. We've included some optional review videos to guide you through the process. Post in the discussion forums your Positioning Statement--then take some time to read through your peers' posts and give feedback.


6 videos, 3 readings expand

1. Video: Welcome and Getting Started
2. Reading: Course and Project Overview
3. Discussion Prompt: Introduce yourself
4. Reading: Giving Feedback
5. Reading: Milestone 1: Create your position statement
6. Discussion Prompt: Milestone 1: What's your position statement?
7. Video: The 20-Minute Strategy Brief
8. Video: IT Strategy Brief: Value Definition
9. Video: IT Strategy Brief: The Customer Journey
10. Video: IT Strategy Brief: Key Activities
11. Video: The Venture Design Framework

WEEK 2


Develop Personas and Problem Scenarios



Welcome to Week 2. This week you'll work on getting a baseline on your personas and discovery plan. Submit this by the end of the week to get (and give) feedback to help improve your final product. If you want to accelerate your learning, go ahead and get started on user interviews and set up a few Google AdWords.


7 videos expand

1. Video: Develop Personas and Problem Scenarios
2. Video: Focusing Your Persona: Think, See, Feel, Do
3. Video: Designing User Stories: Problem Scenarios
4. Video: Demo: Creating an Interview Guide Personas
5. Video: Demo: Creating an Interview Guide Problem Scenarios
6. Video: Overview: Problem Scenario Sprint
7. Video: Using "Day in the Life" to Drive Empathy

Graded: Milestone 2: Personas, Problem Scenarios & Alternatives

WEEK 3


Complete Persona Discovery



Welcome to Week 3. This week, you'll continue working on persona development by interviewing at least three people. As you process the transcripts, look for key learnings and share these in the discussion forum, noting how these interviews impact your direction and point of view. If you want to accelerate your learning, interview at least three more learners and complete a "Day in the Life".


5 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: Complete Persona Discovery
2. Reading: Milestone 3: Persona Discovery
3. Discussion Prompt: Milestone 3: What did you learn from persona interviews?
4. Video: Getting People to Interview
5. Video: Talking with Users
6. Video: Skit: Interviewing Trent the Technician
7. Video: Overview Problem Scenario Sprint

WEEK 4


Design and Test Your Value Proposition



Welcome to Week 4! This week, you're ready work on Milestone 4: Design experiments to test your value proposition. This is an intensive--and exciting--week as you'll get to actually run your tests. Spending around 5 hours probably means just testing your experiment design once. That's fine--that's a great accomplishment! After that, you'll have a solid idea of how to proceed and generally how to test motivation. You'll post your experiment design for peer review and then let the group know how it went in the discussions.


5 videos expand

1. Video: Design and Test Your Value Proposition
2. Discussion Prompt: How did your experiments go?
3. Video: Demo: Drafting Problem Scenarios, Alternatives, and Value Propositions
4. Video: Learning What's Valuable
5. Video: Recommendations by Type of Project
6. Video: Preparing for Motivation Sprints

Graded: Milestone 4: Design and Test Your Value Proposition

WEEK 5


Create Strong User Narrative



Welcome to Week 5! This week, you'll focus on creating strong user narrative, going in depth to detail out the user experience and plan atomic rewards. You'll develop epic user stories, child stories, test cases--and then put them up on the wall using sticky notes. Then take a picture and submit it along with the relevant portions of the Venture Design Template for peer review. Be sure to save time to give a thorough review to at least one of your peer's submissions.


4 videos expand

1. Video: Create Strong User Narrative
2. Video: Writing Great User Stories
3. Video: IT Strategy Brief: The Customer Journey
4. Video: Good Collaboration

Graded: Milestone 5: User Narrative

WEEK 6


Design Prototypes and Usability Test for Them



Welcome to Week 6. This week, you'll focus on developing your user test plan, exploring patterns & comparables for one user story, and then drafting at least two different concepts for that story based on alternative patterns and comparables. You'll also develop interactive wireframes that directly relate to the narrative. At the end of this week, you will submit your test plan and wireframes for peer review and give feedback to at least one of your peer's on their test plan.


6 videos expand

1. Video: Design User Tests
2. Video: Test-Driven Proposition Design
3. Video: Creating Good Test Items
4. Video: The Importance of Comparables and Prototyping
5. Video: Models, Patterns & Comparables
6. Video: Demo: Creating Interactive Prototypes in Balsamiq

Graded: Milestone 6: User Testing

WEEK 7


Conduct User Testing and Submit Your Full Project for Review



Welcome to week 7. This week you will conduct user testing and reflect on the results. With this accomplished, you can finalize your Venture Design Template and upload it (or a link to it) for your peers to review next week. We're excited to see these projects!


3 videos expand

1. Video: Conduct User Testing
2. Discussion Prompt: User Testing Results
3. Video: Testing Usability
4. Video: Running Usability Tests

Graded: Your Completed Venture Design--including user testing

WEEK 8


Review Your Peers' Projects



Welcome to week 8, our final week together. Your main assignment this week is to carefully review at least three different projects. This is no small task--but please complete it promptly so that everyone can receive their Specialization Certificate on time. We've also provided resources for you to create a portfolio to showcase your final project for your team, your employer, or for an interview. Finally, please share your reflections about the course experience. It's been great working with--and learning from--you!


1 video, 2 readings expand

1. Reading: Milestone 8: Peer reviewing final projects
2. Discussion Prompt: So, how did it go?
3. Video: Final Thoughts
4. Reading: Portfolio Resources