Abstract:

The course, using transformation techniques of the design sprint framework for discovering successful products, has been provided by the Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies, part of the Czech Technical University in Prague.

During this course of intense discovery work, both teachers and “agile” small teams of students explored dozens of different product ideas and approaches, with the goal of solving some significant business problems. In all already completed rounds, the course has been realized in cooperation with a real company and the students have been working on a real task. This four-day course starts with framing the problem by mapping the problem space, selecting both the problem to be solved and a target customer (aka a marketing/user persona), and then progresses into pursuing several different approaches to the solution. The team of students then narrows down and fleshes out the different potential solutions, then creates a high-fidelity user prototype using online collaborative tools Miro, and also Figma, a UX/UI design tool that allows the entire team to create, collaborate, prototype and interact all in the same place. Finally, that prototype is put in front of actual target users (represented by testers) and their reactions and feedback are observed, in order to address critical risks, and to collect evidence.

It’s about shared learning. Teachers and students together contribute to the overall outcome of the course, using learning by doing, and with the help of collaborative digital platforms for cooperation, which brings students closer to real practice in today's companies. Experience from those forms of teaching, challenges and practices during the pandemic, including recommendations on the use of partial techniques, are summarized in this paper. This paper brings the experiences of both teachers and participants together with those modern product techniques, based on the design thinking approach and real creativity of students within distance learning in times of COVID-19.

Keywords:

Agile, Design Sprint, Product Discovery, Online Teaching, Hybrid Teaching.