Apply agile principles to strategic thinking in academia.

1. Agile for Academia
Shanae Ullman, UX and Emerging Technologies Strategist

2. Agenda
▪ What is Agile?
▪ Key Agile Principles
▪ Activity

3. What is Agile?

4. “ [Being agile is] the ability to create and respond to change in
order to succeed in an uncertain and turbulent
environment.
- Agile Alliance
https://www.agilealliance.org/

5. Agile Software Development
In 2001, a group of software
developers created the Agile
Manifesto and 12 Principles to set
guidelines for building new
technologies.
- Agile Alliance
https://www.agilealliance.org/

6. AGILE EDU
Applying the principles of Agile to Higher Education

7. Agile Methodology
▪ Collaborate closely with
multiple departments / groups.
▪ Create frequent updates to
bring value to students, faculty, staff.
▪ Create smart ways to
proactively create, collect
feedback, communicate, make
updates
▪ Continuously learn from previous
experiences. - Agile Alliance
https://www.agilealliance.org/

8. Key Agile Principles
▪ Cross-Department Teams
▪ Personas
▪ User Stories
▪ Daily/Weekly Status Check-In
▪ Incremental Updates
▪ Iterative Development
▪ Milestone Retrospective
- Agile Alliance
https://www.agilealliance.org/

9. Cross-Department Team
▪ Who are the key people
for the project?
▪ What are their roles?
Approver, Reviewer, To
Inform
▪ Are the key people on
campus or are they external
vendors/groups?
Activity - Teams and Personas
Personas
▪ Who is the intended
audience?
▪ What are their
characteristics?
▪ What are their goals?

10. Create 2 user stories for your project.
Example:
As a professor I want to review textbooks so
that I choose the best fit for students in my
class.
Acceptance Criteria: Digital version available,
covers design thinking, under $30
Activity - User Stories

11. Create a communication plan for checking in.
▪ Set ground rules
▫ Confidentiality
▫ No Judgment
▫ Everyone speaks
▫ Set deadlines for projects
▫ Meet daily, weekly, monthly, in person or
digitally
▪ Inform: What are you working on?
▪ Ask: Request help from team.
▪ Offer: What information or skills can you offer to
the team?
Activity - Communication Plan

12. Create a visual board for tracking and
planning incremental updates.
▪ To Do
▪ Doing
▪ Done
▪ Availability of key people
▪ Velocity/Effort
▪ Assign points to tasks
▪ Determine how many points in a
specific time period (Sprint)
Activity - Incremental Updates

13. Always have a retrospective to learn
about the process.
In person or/and online
▪ What worked well?
▪ What didn't work well?
▪ What questions do you still have?
▪ How can we improve?
Activity - Milestone Retrospective

14. Think about the
people.
Build Relationships
Communicate often
Proactively Plan and
Adjust for Change
Continuously Improve
Library
Provides Digital
and Print
Resources for
students and
faculty
Faculty
Integrates
resources in
classroom for
student learning
M Store
Provides
ecosystem for
students to make
textbook purchase
Evaluating Textbooks for Courses

15. Resources
▪ Agile Alliance https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101/
▪ Scrum Alliance https://www.scrumalliance.org/learn-
about-scrum
▪ Project Management
Institute https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/agile-
project-management-scrum-6269
▪ Kanban and Scrum in Realtime
Board https://realtimeboard.com/blog/scrum-kanban-
boards-differences/

16. Thanks!
!
Any questions?