This is the intro. to a 14-session software design class. Syllabus: https://www.alexandercowan.com/software-design-in-person-class/

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SOFTWARE DESIGN:
SESSION 1
WELCOME
Alex Cowan
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

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MANAGERS OF THE FUTURE
1. Will create digital experiences that are rewarding and enhance
human intelligence
2. Will use the tools of design to integrate business and technology
with user experience
3. Will work collaboratively in small, interdisciplinary teams
4. Will be proficient with evidence-driven innovation
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

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BUILDING A SOFTWARE PRODUCT/VENTURE GETTING CHEAPER
Source: CB Insights
$5,000,000
$500,000 $50,000 $5,000
2011200920052000
Open source and
horizontal scaling
Cloud and AWS
COST TO LAUNCH A TECH STARTUP

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BUT IT’S TOUGHER THAN EVER TO CREATE VALUE
Sources: see bit.ly/sw-class
64% of Features Rarely or Never Used
50-70% of IT Projects Fail
90% of New Products Fail

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YOU, THE FUTURE MANAGER
Source: Martin Eriksson
UX
Tech Business

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THE PRODUCT MANAGER AND THEIR PRODUCT PIPELINE
Qualitative &
Quantitative
Discussable,
Actionable,
Testable
Valuable,
Validated,
Testable

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COURSE POSITIONING
Objective
To function as an interdisciplinary lead/coach in a modern (agile) digital team.
Takeaways
Fluency in designing, testing, and collaborating for usability.
Expectations
Prepared for case discussions and in-class project reviews
Difficulty
Relatively high- there is hands-on work and (on scale) relatively high workload
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

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COURSE EXPERIENCE
1. Introductory Cases
introduction to case-driven applied design concepts in a simplified environment
2. Project Execution
application of design concepts against student-generated projects
3. Design Reviews
reviews and explanations of your work intra-team, inter-team (peer review),
intra-class
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

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COURSE EXPERIENCE
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF
sessions
(roughly)estimatedclassprep.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Prep. & Dry
Run Test Suite
Digital
Prototype
Test
Results (2)
User
Stories
Peer
Review
User Stories +
Comp’s
Prototypes
Peer
Review
Test
Results (2)
Coding Case
(HTML)
Coding Case
(CSS)
Coding Case
(Debugging)

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+ DIGITAL PM?
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

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COURSE DETAILS
1. Grading
Attendance & Participation: 30%
Individual Assignments: 30%
Final Project (Group): 40%
2. Working Environments
Google Doc’s highly preferred but MSFT365 also OK.
3. Resources & References
Notes, industry posts, Google Docs templates
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

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ABOUT ME
Entrepreneur (5x)
Intrapreneur (1x)
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

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ABOUT ME
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF
bit.ly/hiagile

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3 CREDIT IS (OR DS) IN Q3, Q4: DIGITAL CAPSTONE
Data Science in Business (Q1+Q2)
Software Design (Q1)
Software Development (J-Term)
PREREQUISITES
1. Decide what problems/jobs are worth solving
with software/digital
2. Use qualitative and quantitative customer
insights to create a testable focus
3. Focus their work around testable hypotheses
and best practice design inputs
4. Instrument the right observations into their
applications (inputs to data science/digital
analytics)
5. Move from design to code
6. Make test-driven decisions on what to do next
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
bit.ly/digicapstone
APPLY