1.

1 Course Overview and Requirements

Despite everyone’s good intentions, hard work and solid ideas,

too many projects end up creating unneeded, unusable, and
unsellable products. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Agile
and design thinking offer a different–and effective–approach to
product development, one that results in valuable solutions to
meaningful problems. In this course, you’ll learn how to
determine what’s valuable to a user early in the process–to
frontload value–by focusing your team on testable narratives
about the user and creating a strong shared perspective.

We’ll show you how to:

• Explain key concepts and practices from the agile product

development methodology.
• Create a strong shared perspective and drive to value using
personas and problem scenarios.
• Diagnose what software to develop and why using a set of
agile user stories and prototypes.
• Facilitate narrative collaboration with user stories and
prototypes.
• Allow for early testing and validation by analyzing and
deciding on story backlogs.
Project Management Institute (PMI®) Professional Development Units (PDUs)
Are you interested in PDUs for your PMI certification? As a Project
Management Institute (PMI®) Registered Education Provider, the
University of Virginia Darden School of Business has been
approved by PMI to issue professional development units (PDUs)
for this course, which focuses on core competencies recognized by
PMI. (Provider #2122)

Learn more about reporting PDUs by clicking here

Course Format and Resources

This course is divided into four required weeks as follows:
 1. Problems Agile Solves
2. Agile Design with Personas, Problem Scenarios, and
Alternatives
3. Writing Great Agile User Stories
4. Enhancing Your User Story
Each week contains:
Lecture videos: These videos provide the core content of the
course.

Demos: These videos illustrate how to tackle processes described

in the lessons.

Skits: These videos illustrate examples of how agile works in the

real world by using actors to role-play the scenarios.

Tests: You’ll complete three 5-question graded tests. Weeks 1, 2,

and 4 all contain a test. At the end of the test, you’ll get feedback on
your responses to help you understand why an answer is correct or
incorrect. You have three attempts to answer each question.

Peer-reviewed assignments: In Weeks 3 and 4 you will complete

a peer-reviewed assignment. The two peer-reviewed assignments
provide an opportunity for you to apply agile practices to a project of
your choice. Once you’ve uploaded an assignment, you’ll be
requested to peer review your classmates’ work. Remember, your
careful review and feedback not only helps your classmate better
understand the material–it helps deepen your understanding as
well.

Resources:
Make sure to view/download all of the powerpoint slides for the
course and each week that are included below under “Downloads.”

1.20 From Understanding Agile to Developing Personas

The practices that deliver excellent product are well
understood, but rarely seen. During Week 1, you identified
what’s hard about creating excellent products and how agile
can help. You learned about the Agile Manifesto, key agile
terminology, and how agile arose from previous development
practices. Then you looked at what makes implementing agile
so challenging and made a case for why it’s worth it and how
to do it. By the end of this week, you had a solid understanding
of agile processes and are now prepared to use the Venture
Design Template to work through project development and
drive toward valuable outcomes.

2.8 Key Takeaways From Creating Actionable Personas

In this activity, Alex discussed and provided demos for how to

create and use personas by operationalizing them with the
Think, See, Feel, Do Framework and following the Venture
Design Template.

• What are some of your key takeaways from these discussions

and demos?

• How can you start applying these lessons to your work?

• In regards to making a persona, it is important to understand who you will be

marketing the product or service to. To accomplish this goal, it may be
beneficial to craft a character much like you would should you be creating a
story. This character though can be a rough sketch. You should know their
basic routine, interests, and most importantly what issues they may be facing
in their daily lives. This is critical because it is the issue you want to solve
while their interests and routines can tell you why they might find your solution
valuable.
• While you should have a rough sketch, this does not mean talking in generals.
Focus on a singular person who can act as an everyman for a typical
consumer of the product. This will aid in allowing you to narrow down the who
to a more specific demographic than anyone who is in one field or in a certain
age population.

• In the example, we haven't got a background as to why we are speaking to

Trent. I would suggest that it could be because we have had a request from
the business to improve billable time and revenue and they are not that
interested in much else. So it's the measurable 'Do' here that is what the
business are after. Think, See, Feel, Do would be nice but in my experience
 the business would effectively start with 'Do' and aren't really interested in the
full persona although there could be valuable info and feedback in there.

Good personas tell a story. It’s important to humanise them, give them a name, find a picture,
gather a collage of real examples to support the think, see, feel, do dimensions.

2.13 Practice for the Assignment: Write a Persona

For your peer-reviewed assignment in Week 3, you’ll be

drafting a persona. For this discussion, we are going to do a
quick warm-up for this assignment.

1. Pick one persona related to your area of interest.

2. What shoes does this persona wear?
3. What kind of pet does the persona own (if they have a pet)?

For example: Priya the Parent wears black Nike trainers, has two
Cocker Spaniels, and three long-haired cats. She spends a lot of
time vacuuming up fur!

1. Pick one persona related to your area of interest.

2. What shoes does this persona wear?
3. What kind of pet does the persona own (if they have a pet)?

For example: Priya the Parent wears black Nike trainers, has two
Cocker Spaniels, and three long-haired cats. She spends a lot of
time vacuuming up fur!

For your peer-reviewed assignment in Week 3, you’ll be

drafting a persona. For this discussion, we are going to do a
quick warm-up for this assignment.

1. Pick one persona related to your area of interest.

2. What shoes does this persona wear?
3. What kind of pet does the persona own (if they have a pet)?
For example: Priya the Parent wears black Nike trainers, has two
Cocker Spaniels, and three long-haired cats. She spends a lot of
time vacuuming up fur!

2.15 From Developing Personas to User Stories

During Week 2, you learned how to develop personas, problem

scenarios, and alternatives using best practices from design
thinking. This is important because the best way to avoid
building something nobody wants is to start with somebody in
mind. That “somebody” is a persona.

During Week 3, you’ll be learning how to create software that meets

users’ need. That 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). During this week, 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.

3.7 Do You Know What Matters To Your User?

You’ve listened to Alex discuss the importance of

understanding your user and how to do so. Now respond to
the questions below:

• How well do you know your user?

• What are some steps, or tools that you can use, to begin to
understand your user better?

At the moment our users are not well defined. It is useful to see how using questionnaires that
are well designed get give you a better understanding of what the user requires rather than
relying on assumptions.

3.9 Persona Development

For this assignment you are completing a scaled down version of customer discovery.
When you are ready to do full customer discovery on the job you may want to start
working from a complete Venture Design Template (this template requires use of
Google Docs). The Personas Tutorial reading may also help as a written reference.

For this assignment, you’ll be developing:

• A list of personas related to your area of interest

• A detailed persona to help you understand your target user

1. Brainstorm Personas

a) Brainstorm at least 5 personas related to your area of interest. Try doing as many as you
can in 5 minutes. All you need to write down is a descriptive name: [Name] the [Job title or
role].

b) Now sort the 5 personas in order of priority.

2. Detail a Persona

Develop a detailed description for the top persona from your list.

a) Vividly describe this persona using specific details so that s/he feels like a real person.
What’s a day in their life?

b) Describe what this person thinks, sees, feels, and does related to your area of interest.

ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES

The reviewers will be asked to give you feedback on the following aspects of your
assignment, so you should consider these when writing:

• How complete does this persona list feel to you?

• What else can be added to make this persona feel like a real person?
• How well does this persona help you understand the target user?

For this assignment you are completing a scaled down version of customer discovery.
When you are ready to do full customer discovery on the job you may want to start
working from a complete Venture Design Template (this template requires use of
Google Docs). The Personas Tutorial reading may also help as a written reference.

For this assignment, you’ll be developing:

• A list of personas related to your area of interest

 • A detailed persona to help you understand your target user

1. Brainstorm Personas

a) Brainstorm at least 5 personas related to your area of interest. Try doing as many as you
can in 5 minutes. All you need to write down is a descriptive name: [Name] the [Job title or
role].

b) Now sort the 5 personas in order of priority.

2. Detail a Persona

Develop a detailed description for the top persona from your list.

a) Vividly describe this persona using specific details so that s/he feels like a real person.
What’s a day in their life?

b) Describe what this person thinks, sees, feels, and does related to your area of interest.

ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES

The reviewers will be asked to give you feedback on the following aspects of your
assignment, so you should consider these when writing:

• How complete does this persona list feel to you?

• What else can be added to make this persona feel like a real person?
• How well does this persona help you understand the target user?

3.15 Giving Persona Development Feedback

For this assignment, learners developed a list of personas related to their area of
interest, and a detailed persona to help them understand their target user.

Please review the assignment and provide constructive feedback to each guideline.

ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES

You’re going to be asked to give feedback on the following aspects of the author’s
assignment:

• How complete does this persona list feel to you?

• What else can be added to make this persona feel like a real person?
• How well does this persona help you understand the target user?
Please keep this window open and do not navigate away before submitting your feedback. If
you close the window or navigate to a different page, you will be given a new assignment to
review when you return.

You must first submit an assignment in the previous step before you
can review other learners’ assignments.

3.12 From Discovering User Stories to Writing Them

During Week 3 you learned how to create software that meets

users’ need, and how that 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). You learned how to conduct
effective, efficient discovery, from creating an interview guide to
interviewing users. You completed the week by creating Google
AdWords-ready copy and drafting your personas, problem
scenarios and alternatives.

4.19 User Story Development

For this assignment you are completing a scaled down version of user story
development. When you are ready to do full user story development on the job you may
want to start working from a complete Venture Design Template (this template
requires use of Google Docs). The Your Best Agile User Story reading may help as a
written reference.

For this assignment, you’ll develop user stories based on the work you did in the first
assignment.

1. Develop a user story that flows from your persona.

This will be an ‘epic’ that you’ll detail out with child stories. Remember most feature ideas
are a lot more involved than we think. Make sure your epic deals with specific interactions,
like Ted the Technician figuring out how much a part will cost and when he can get it so he
can plan next steps with the customer. This is not the story of your whole product/project.

a) Use the formula, “As a [persona], I want to [do something] so that I can [derive a benefit].”
For example, “‘As Ted the HVAC technician, I want to identify a part that needs replacing so
I can decide my next steps.”
b) Be sure to fully think through the [derive a benefit] clause, since this is where you
establish why you think the software will be valuable to the user. Make sure your idea on this
is testable and focused on a specific functional area.

2. Develop two child stories and related test cases.

a) Develop two child stories and related test cases. See examples in Appendix A and B
of Your Best Agile User Story.

b) Check your work using the INVEST checklist (click on “Developing with Stories and
Story Maps” in the Your Best Agile User Story reading).

ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES

The reviewers will be asked to give you feedback on the following aspects of your
assignment, so you should consider these when writing:

• In your opinion, is the user story at the right level of detail? Not too specific (like a feature)
and not too broad (like a project). How do you suggest adjusting it?
• How testable is the [derive a benefit clause]? How would you suggest making it more
testable?
• How would you make the child stories and test cases more INVESTable?

4.20 Giving User Story Development Feedback

For this assignment, learners developed a user story that flowed from the persona they
created in the first peer-reviewed assignment.

Please review the assignment and provide constructive feedback to each guideline.

ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES

You’re going to be asked to give feedback on the following aspects of the author’s
assignment:

• In your opinion, is the user story at the right level of detail? Not too specific (like a feature)
and not too broad (like a project). How do you suggest adjusting it?
• How testable is the [derive a benefit clause]? How would you suggest making it more
testable?
• How would you make the child stories and test cases more INVESTable?

Please keep this window open and do not navigate away before submitting your feedback. If
you close the window or navigate to a different page, you will be given a new assignment to
review when you return.
4.23 Course Summary

Based on the knowledge you have gained in this course, think

about:

• What are your 2-3 key takeaways from this course?

• How will you apply these 2-3 key takeaways to either your
current or future project/s?

A brilliant course for me. I do not work in the field of programming but believe that the Agile
approach is broadly adaptable to problem solving in business. In part this is a discipline based on
process steps but also more closely aligned to 'real' customer needs for me. I believe my
takeaways are: Agile is multi disciplinary, secondly, understanding the customer better rather
than imposing a bright idea upon them will lead to more successful outcomes. The challenge will
be to get the customer engaged in defining there underlying issues so it may be necessary to
explain the rationale of the approach to aid their understanding. I will use this to structure my
problem discovery phase, to engage customers in agreeing the benefits they seek and
continuously experimenting with the customer that the solutions meet their needs.

From this course, I learned how to start developing a persona along with what it means to have
an agile work environment. In the future, this can aid me in better understanding what needs to
be done before putting together a project or proposal. Additionally, it can help me understand
why a company should value agile design even if it will be a larger process.