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stars
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Alex Cowan

44,776 already enrolled

Offered By

University of Virginia

About this Course

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To deliver agile outcomes, you have to do more than implement agile processes- you have to create focus around what matters to your user and constantly test your ideas. This is easier said than done, but most of today’s high-functioning innovators have a strong culture of experimentation.
In this course, you’ll learn how to identify the right questions at the right time, and pair them with the right methods to do just enough testing to make sure you minimize waste and maximize the outcomes you create with your user.

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.

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Approx. 10 hours to complete

English

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What you will learn

How to drive valuable outcomes for your user and reduce waste for your team by diagnosing and prioritizing what you need to know about them
How to focus your practice of agile by pairing qualitative and quantitative analytics
How to do just enough research when you need it by running design sprints
How to accelerate value delivery by investing in your product pipeline

Skills you will gain

Usability Testing
Continuous Delivery
hypothesis-driven development
Lean Startup

Flexible deadlines

Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

100% online

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Approx. 10 hours to complete

English

Could your company benefit from training employees on in-demand skills?

Try Coursera for Business

Instructor

Instructor rating

4.83/5 (144 Ratings)

Alex Cowan

Faculty & Batten Fellow

Darden School of Business

419,195 Learners

20 Courses

Offered by

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.

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Syllabus - What you will learn from this course

Content Rating94%(2,381 ratings)

Week

Week 1

2 hours to complete

How Do We Know if We're Building for a User that Doesn't Exist?

How do you go from backlog grooming to blockbuster results with agile? Hypothesis-driven decisions. Specifically, you need to shift your teammates focus from their natural tendency to focus on their own output to focusing out user outcomes. Easier said than done, but getting everyone excited about results of an experiment is one of the most reliable ways to get there. This week, we’ll focus on how you get started in a practical way.

2 hours to complete

19 videos (Total 69 min), 1 reading, 1 quiz

19 videos

Course Introduction4m

Introducing Example Company: HVAC in a Hurry1m

Hypotheses-Driven Development & Your Product Pipeline2m

The Persona Hypothesis3m

The Problem/JTBD Hypothesis3m

The Demand/Value Hypothesis2m

The Usability Hypothesis2m

The Functional Hypothesis2m

Driving to Value with Your Persona & Problem Hypothesis1m

Example Personas and Problem Scenarios4m

Setting Up Interviews3m

Prepping for Subject Interviews3m

Conducting the Interview6m

How Not to Interview6m

Day in the Life4m

You and Your Next Design Sprint4m

The Practice of Time Boxing4m

Overview of the Persona and Problem Sprint2m

How Do I Sell the Idea of a Design Sprint4m

1 reading

Course Overview & Requirements15m

1 practice exercise

Week 1 Quiz20m

Week

Week 2

2 hours to complete

How Do We Reduce Waste & Increase Wins by Testing Our Propositions Before We Build Them?

Nothing will help a team deliver better outcomes like making sure they’re building something the user values. This might sound simple or obvious, but I think after this week it’s likely you’ll find opportunities to help improve your team’s focus by testing ideas more definitively before you invest in developing software. In this module, you’ll learn how to make concept testing an integral part of your product pipeline. We’ll continue to apply methods from Lean Startup, looking at how they pair with agile. We’ll look at how high-functioning teams design and run situation-appropriate experiments to test ideas, and how that works before the fact (when you’re testing an idea) and after the fact (when you’re testing the value of software you’ve released).

2 hours to complete

18 videos (Total 113 min)

18 videos

Creating More Wins4m

Lean Startup and the Systematic Drive to Value4m

Introducing Enable Quiz1m

Focusing Your Ideas6m

Creating Assumptions4m

Learning What's Valuable7m

Business to Consumer Case Studies9m

Business to Business Case Studies6m

Using a Design Sprint to Test Your Demand Hypothesis3m

Interview: Tristan Kromer on the Practice of Lean Startup6m

Interview: David Bland on the Practice of Lean Startup5m

Interview: Tristan Kromer on Creating a Culture of Experimentation Part 17m

Interview: Tristan Kromer on Creating a Culture of Experimentation Part 26m

Interview: David Bland on Creating a Culture of Experimentation: Part 14m

Interview: David Bland on Creating a Culture of Experimentation: Part 29m

Interview: David Bland on Marrying Agile to Lean Startup7m

Interview: David Bland on Using Hypothesis with Agile5m

Interview: Laura Klein on the Right Kind of Research10m

1 practice exercise

Week 2 Quiz20m

Week

Week 3

2 hours to complete

How Do We Consistently Deliver Great Usability?

The best products are tested for usability early and often, avoiding the destructive stress and uncertainty of a "big unveil." In this module, you’ll learn how to diagnose, design and execute phase-appropriate user testing. The tools you’ll learn to use here (a test plan template, prototyping tool, and test session infrastructure) are accessible/teachable to anyone on your team. And that’s a very good thing -- often products are released with poor usability because there "wasn’t enough time" to test it. With these techniques, you’ll be able to test early and often, reinforcing your culture of experimentation.

2 hours to complete

16 videos (Total 80 min)

16 videos

The Always Test6m

The Inexact Science of Interface Design6m

Diagnosing Usability with Donald Norman's 7 Steps Model8m

Fixing Usability with Donald Norman's 7 Steps Model3m

Applying the 7 Steps Model to Hypothesis-Driven Development3m

Fixing the Visceral Layer4m

Fixing the Behavioral Layer: The Importance of Comparables & Prototyping9m

Prototyping With Balsamiq4m

Usability Testing: Fun & Affordable2m

The Right Testing at the Right Time2m

A Test Plan Anyone Can Use6m

Creating Good Test Items3m

Running a Usability Design Sprint3m

Running a Usability Design Sprint Skit5m

Interview: Laura Klein on Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research4m

Interview: Laura Klein on Lean UX in Enterprise IT5m

1 practice exercise

Week 3 Quiz20m

Week

Week 4

4 hours to complete

How Do We Invest to Move Fast?

You’ve learned how to test ideas and usability to reduce the amount of software your team needs to build and to focus its execution. Now you’re going to learn how high-functioning teams approach testing of the software itself. The practice of continuous delivery and the closely related Devops movement are changing the way we build and release software. It wasn’t that long ago where 2-3 releases a year was considered standard. Now, Amazon, for example, releases code every 11.6 seconds. This week, we’ll look at the delivery pipeline and step through what successful practitioners do at each stage and how you can diagnose and apply the practices that will improve your implementation of agile.

4 hours to complete

23 videos (Total 118 min)

23 videos

Testing that it Works4m

The Team that Releases Together4m

Getting Started with Continuous Delivery3m

Anders Wallgren on Getting Started4m

The Test Pyramid6m

The Commit & Small Tests Stage2m

The Job of Version Control3m

Medium Tests1m

Large Tests6m

Creating Large/Behavioral Tests9m

Anders Wallgren on Functional Testing9m

Release Stage4m

The Job of Deploying6m

Anders Wallgren on Deployment2m

Chris Kent on Developing with Continuous Delivery10m

Chris Kent on Continuous Deployment11m

Test-Driven General Management5m

Narrative and the 'Happy Path'3m

The Emergence of DevOps and the Ascent of Continuous Delivery4m

Design for Deployability2m

Anders Wallgren on Continuous Deployment3m

Anders Wallgren on Creating a Friendly Environment for Continuous Deployment6m

Course Conclusion2m

1 practice exercise

Week 4 Quiz20m

Reviews

4.7

167 reviews

5 stars
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4 stars
16.54%
3 stars
4.32%
2 stars
1.51%
1 star
0.32%

TOP REVIEWS FROM HYPOTHESIS-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT

by NNNov 13, 2020

Great insights on how to test both the motivation and the usability! Gave me additional knowledge of Agile. It is better to take this course within the Specialization programme.

by OSJun 25, 2017

I thought this was a very good practical course. It was challenging for me since I lack experience in software development industry, but I thought it gave me a very good framework.

by JMDec 26, 2020

As always, Alex is amazing explaining these concepts and guiding the interviews which give a lot of insights on the practical part of this course

by CKSep 24, 2018

This course actually bring all that knowledge into light which has been taught in Course 1-3. all videos specially the interview are the essence of this course.

View all reviews

Frequently Asked Questions

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The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.
What will I get if I subscribe to this Specialization?
When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.
Is financial aid available?
Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.
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Hypothesis-Driven Development

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