Leading Agile Initiatives with Design Thinking

Faculty: Martin Schray

Format: Live, online classes

Structure: Eight – two hour sessions over eight weeks

This course is divided into four major sections:

  • Agile foundation – focuses on understanding agile, agile principles, approaches, and ideology to address business challenges
  • Identifying the problem and stakeholders – focuses on leveraging agile skills with design thinking practices to make sure you are solving the right problem and satisfying key stakeholders
  • Inspect, adapt and transparency – the focus is on employing key agile practices to unlock breakthrough results
  • Customizing agile for your environment – focuses on bring agile to your business

The participants will work on a small project to learn and practice the steps. The faculty will integrate lectures and critique sessions for “just in time learning” throughout the sessions. Our approach to this type of teaching is called “watching the game film.” We will create realistic scenarios/simulations for the team to apply agile practices while using design thinking to identify the right problem and identify key solution requirements from stakeholders.  The learners will go through the scenarios and then review what went well and opportunities for improvement. We do not feel you can become a better agile practitioner by talking about agile; you need to practice, reflect, and adapt.

Our open enrollment courses will begin in early February of 2022. Please contact us to learn more about starting dates, schedule, and how to enroll (OPCE@iit.edu).