Table of Contents
This page describes a 7-week capstone class where MBA students apply and integrate what they’ve learned about user experience design, digital development, and analytics/data science. At UVA Darden where I teach the course, it has pre-requisites in those three areas, which you can see in the example class progression below .
Past student teams, have, for example, rethought the second year registration process, integrating a web from end in HTML, CSS, and Javascript with a predictive model and linear optimization program deployed with Flask. For an example of student work, please see: Stuff Our MBA’s Do at UVA Darden.
If you’re not from Darden but you’re involved with similar classes, I’d love to hear from you on how the materials worked for you and/or how to make them better (or anything else you think is pertinent). Please feel free to leave comments here or drop me a line. Also, there are a bunch of general resources like course syllabi and online (asynchronous) versions of classes the LEARN/TEACH page.
Capstone Prerequisites
At UVA Darden, these are all second-year electives. For each, there is an online alternative where the student completes and instructor-reviewed assignment.
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Q1
How do you design and test digital UI’s?
At Darden, this is Software Design (8632). Anchoring usability hypotheses with user stories, students design and test digital UI’s. For an alternative pre-req, students may take Agile Meets Design Thinking online and complete an equivalent assignment
Q2
How do you make better decisions with predictive analytics?
At Darden, this is Data Science in Business (8496). For an alternative pre-req, students make take Python for Data Science and Machine Learning Bootcamp, completing the related practice. Darden’s dual degree students in data science are exempt from this prerequisite.
J-Term
How do you go from design to code?
At Darden, this is Software Development (8633). For an alternative pre-req, students may take Coding for Designers, Managers, and Entrepreneurs and complete an equivalent assignment. Students with prior coding experience may be exempted from this prerequisite with instructor approval, provided they are fluent in the coding and facilities from this course’s case library.
As You Go
PORTFOLIO BUILDING
What coursework is a candidate for personal storytelling? As you go, create posts and portfolio entries to show vs. tell employers about what you’ve learned. See here for some starter elements- Personal Innovation Portfolio.
Syllabus Overview
For students with the necessary prerequisites, the Digital Capstone is an opportunity for structured practice on integrating three key capabilities for any digital program: product design, application development, and analytics. This course is project-based with a set of three specific deliverables. The course experience is anchored in three primary activities: student review of learning materials to deepen their expertise, execution of project-based deliverables, and review/retrospective around said deliverables.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
1. Move from design to code across multiple iterations
2. Design actionable observations into your digital deliveries
3. Integrate your practice of product design, application development, & analytics
Class Deliverables
Your final team deliverable is a tested prototype for a particular user story.
The material we’ll cover in class is not intellectually difficult- you could spend a few hours and understanding (in concept) everything we’ll cover in class. However, it is challenging to practice. Bright, energetic professionals like you spend whole careers just practicing and sharpening their ability in a few of these topics. For this reason, our emphasis is on short introductions, time for practice and collaboration in class, and then review of example submissions in class.
Weekly Assignments
Please complete the following with your team:
1. Team Charter
Please use this template and share it to ‘acowan@alexandercowan.com’: Agile Team Charter. Likely, you’ve already done some or most of this prior to class, and it’s fine to reuse that material. Please make sure this version you submit reflects your most current thinking on the project and where you’d like to focus
2. Week [n] Backlog in Dev Journal
Please describe the work you plan to do in Sprint 2 by copying the Dev Journal template and filling out the material for Sprint 1. Please share the file to ‘acowan@alexandercowan.com’.
3. OPTIONAL Kanban (Trello) Board
Please do this on Trello. Feel free to reuse boards and content from Trello, but make sure this version is current. Arrange your pipeline however you would like, but please make sure that you have at least the first two columns at the beginning of the board:
Product Backlog- as a repo. for all the ideas you’ve come up with an might want to work on.
Sprint Backlog- as the starting point for the content you’re working in the current or upcoming sprint.
As you finish sprints, I’d like to see what you finished on each one. For this, you can either–
a) add a ‘done’ column in a single board for each sprint (Done-Sprint 1, Done-Sprint 2, etc.)
or
b) make a copy of the board with your product backlog for each new sprint and use that
or
c) some other alt. that you prefer and we mutually agree is workable relative to the class infrastructure.
Please share the Trello board to ‘acowan@alexandercowan.com’.
Alumni Gallery
Ultra EM
see also live site: ultraem.netlify.app/
LiveSquad
DataVoice
FindingFit
Alli
see also the live site: www.get-alli.org/
