Agile Meets Design Thinking

The practices that deliver excellent product are well understood, but rarely seen. In this module, 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, introduce key agile terminology, and explore how agile arose from previous development practices. Then we'll look at what makes implementing agile so challenging and make a case for why it's worth it and how to do it. By the end of this module, you'll have a solid understanding of agile processes and be prepared to use the Venture Design Template to work through project development and drive toward valuable outcomes.

The best way to avoid building something nobody wants is to start with somebody in mind. That "somebody" is a persona. Personas and problem scenarios tie development to the end user and help you drive toward a valuable solution. In this module, you’ll learn to develop personas, problem scenarios, and alternatives using best practices from design thinking.

Creating software that meets users' need begins with understanding that user--and user stories are a tool that helps teams understand the end-user perspective.The agile user story is the focal point for just about everything that follows. This is where we diagnose what we think we should do for the user and why, and how we’ll know if we did something relevant (or created waste). In this module, you'll learn how to conduct effective, efficient discovery, from creating an interview guide to interviewing users. You'll finish with creating Google AdWords-ready copy and drafting your personas, problem scenarios and alternatives.