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IT Product Development
- Course name: IT Product Development
- Code discipline: CSE807
- Subject area: Software Engineering
Short Description
This course has two parts: 1) building and launching a user-facing software product with the special emphasis on understanding user needs and 2) the application of data-driven product development techniques to iteratively improve the product. Students will learn how to transform an idea into software requirements through user research, prototyping and usability tests, then they will proceed to launch the MVP version of the product. In the second part of the course, the students will apply an iterative data-driven approach to developing a product, integrate event analytics, and run controlled experiments.
Prerequisites
Prerequisite subjects
- CSE101: Introduction to Programming
- CSE112: Software Systems Analysis and Design
- CSE122 OR CSE804 OR CSE809 OR CSE812
Prerequisite topics
- Basic programming skills.
- OOP, and software design.
- Familiarity with some development framework or technology (web or mobile)
Course Topics
| Section | Topics within the section |
|---|---|
| From idea to MVP |
|
| Development and Launch |
|
| Hypothesis-driven development |
|
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
What is the main purpose of this course?
The main purpose of this course is to enable a student to go from an idea to an MVP with the focus on delivering value to the customer and building the product in a data-driven evidence-based manner.
ILOs defined at three levels
Level 1: What concepts should a student know/remember/explain?
By the end of the course, the students should be able to ...
- Describe the formula for stating a product idea and the importance of delivering value
- Remember the definition and main attributes of MVP
- Explain what are the main principles for building an effective customer conversation
- Describe various classification of prototypes and where each one is applied
- State the characteristics of a DEEP product backlog
- Elaborate on the main principles of an effective UI/UX product design (hierarchy, navigation, color, discoverability, understandability)
- List the key commonalities and differences between the mentality of a software engineer and a product manager
- Explain what is hypothesis-driven development
- Describe the important aspects and elements of a controlled experiment
Level 2: What basic practical skills should a student be able to perform?
By the end of the course, the students should be able to ...
- Formulate and assess the product ideas
- Perform market research for existing products
- Design effective customer conversations
- Prototype UI, design and conduct usability tests
- Prototype user interface
- Design and conduct usability testing
- Populate and groom a product backlog
- Conduct Sprint Planning and Review
- Choose product metrics and apply GQM
- Integrate a third-party Analytics tools
- Design, run and conclude Controlled experiments
Level 3: What complex comprehensive skills should a student be able to apply in real-life scenarios?
By the end of the course, the students should be able to ...
- Conduct user and domain research to identify user needs and possible solutions
- Elicit and document software requirements
- Organize a software process to swiftly launch an MVP and keep improving it in an iterative manner.
- Build a data pipeline to monitor metrics based on business goals and assess product progress in regards to design changes.
- Evolve and improve a product in a data-driven evidence-based iterative manner
Grading
Course grading range
| Grade | Range | Description of performance |
|---|---|---|
| A. Excellent | 90-100 | - |
| B. Good | 75-89 | - |
| C. Satisfactory | 60-74 | - |
| D. Fail | 0-59 | - |
Course activities and grading breakdown
| Activity Type | Percentage of the overall course grade |
|---|---|
| Assignment | 50 |
| Quizzes | 15 |
| Peer review | 15 |
| Demo day | 20 |
Recommendations for students on how to succeed in the course
Participation is important. Showing up is the key to success in this course.
You will work in teams, so coordinating teamwork will be an important factor for success. This is also reflected in the peer review being a graded item.
Review lecture materials before classes to do well in quizzes.
Reading the recommended literature is optional, and will give you a deeper understanding of the material.
Resources, literature and reference materials
Open access resources
- Jackson, Michael. "The world and the machine." ICSE '95: Proceedings of the 17th international conference on Software engineeringApril 1995 Pages 283–292,
- The Guide to Product Metrics:
Closed access resources
- Fitzpatrick, R. (2013). The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you. Robfitz Ltd.
- Reis, E. (2011). The lean startup. New York: Crown Business, 27.
- Rubin, K. S. (2012). Essential Scrum: A practical guide to the most popular Agile process. Addison-Wesley.
Software and tools used within the course
- Firebase Analytics and A/B Testing, https://firebase.google.com/
- Amplitude Product Analytics, https://www.amplitude.com/
- MixPanel Product Analytics, https://mixpanel.com/
Teaching Methodology: Methods, techniques, & activities
Activities and Teaching Methods
| Teaching Techniques | Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Problem-based learning (students learn by solving open-ended problems without a strictly-defined solution) | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Project-based learning (students work on a project) | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Differentiated learning (provide tasks and activities at several levels of difficulty to fit students needs and level) | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| развивающего обучения (задания и материал "прокачивают" ещё нераскрытые возможности студентов); | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| концентрированного обучения (занятия по одной большой теме логически объединяются); | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| inquiry-based learning | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Learning Activities | Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lectures | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Interactive Lectures | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Lab exercises | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Development of individual parts of software product code | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Group projects | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Quizzes (written or computer based) | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Peer Review | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Discussions | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Presentations by students | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Written reports | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Experiments | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Formative Assessment and Course Activities
Ongoing performance assessment
Section 1
| Activity Type | Content | Is Graded? |
|---|---|---|
| Quiz | 1. What is a product? What are the techniques for describing a product idea in a clear concise manner? 2. What user research techniques do you know? In what situations are they applied? 3. What are the key customer conversation principles according to the Mom Test technique? Bring an example of bad and good questions to ask. 4. What are the 4 phases of the requirements engineering process? 5. How do we document requirements? What techniques do you know? |
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| Presentation | Prepare a short 2-minutes pitch for your project idea (2-5 slides). Suggested structure: What problem you are solving: - State the problem clearly in 2-3 short sentences. Who are you solving it for: - Who is your user/customer? - Why will they be attracted to it? What is your proposed solution to solve that problem: - One sentence description - What main feature(s) will it have? |
0 |
| Individual Assignments | A1: Product Ideation and Market Research Formulate 3 project ideas in the following format: X helps Y to do Z – where X is your product’s name, Y is the target user, and Z is what user activity product help with. Submit Link to Screenshot board and Feature Analysis Table: - Pick and explore 5 apps similar to your idea - Take screenshots along the way and collect them on a board. - Make a qualitative analysis table for app features. Prepare a short 2-minutes pitch for your project idea (2-5 slides). Suggested structure: What problem you are solving: - State the problem clearly in 2-3 short sentences. Who are you solving it for: - Who is your user/customer? - Why will they be attracted to it? What is your proposed solution to solve that problem: - One sentence description - What main feature(s) will it have? |
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| Group Project Work | A2: Forming Teams and Identifying Stakeholders Students are distributed into teams. Meet your team Discuss the idea Agree on the roles Setup task tracker (Trello or similar) Identify 3-5 stakeholders and how to approach them Compose a set of 5 most important questions you would ask from each stakeholder when interviewing them Submit A pdf with the idea description, roles distribution among the team, identified stakeholders, ways to approach them, a set of questions for each stakeholder. An invite link to join your task tracker A3: Domain Exploration and Requirements User Research Process: Compose the questionnaire for each stakeholder type. Talk to 5-7 stakeholders. Keep updating the questionnaire throughout the process Compose an interview results table Produce personas Summarize most important learning points Describe features your MVP will have (use case diagram + user story mapping) Submit a pdf report with: Personas + corresponding questionnaires Interview results table (can provide a link to spreadsheet, make sure to open access) Learning points summary MVP features. Optional: Start implementation of the functionality you are certain about. Assignment 4. UI design, Prototyping, MVP, and Usability Testing Break down MVP features into phases and cut down the specification to implement MVP V1 Produce low and high fidelity designs for your product. Review the phases breakdown. Follow either the Prototyping or MVP path to complete the assignment. Prototyping path: Make a clickable prototype with Figma or a similar tool Make 5-10 offline stakeholders use your prototype, observe them and gather feedback Embed your prototype into an online usability testing tool (e.g. Maze). Run an online usability test with 5-10 online stakeholders. Summarize key learning points MVP path: Review your MVP phases. Build MVP V1 Make 5-10 offline stakeholders use your MVP, observe them and gather feedback Integrate an online usability testing tool to observe user sessions (e.g. Smartlook). Distribute the MVP to 5-10 online stakeholders and run an online usability test. Summarize key learning points Submit all of the below in one PDF: Link to sketches and designs. Link to your MVP/Clickable prototype. Link to online usability test. Names of people you conducted the tests with and which stakeholder type are they. Key learning points summary. Make sure all links are accessible/viewable. |
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