USING AGILE METHODS FOR COURSE MANAGEMENT ANDDELIVERYAPPAM Spring 2014 Conference

12 April 2014 – e12d2a3f7785

James P. Howard, IISchool of Public and International Affairs

MOTIVATION

I Teach Here

Public Financial Management

Graduate-level (MPA)

Monday nights

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I Also Teach Here

Introduction to Statistics

Undergraduate-level

Online

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND AGILE

Why Project Management

◦ Complex and different class types

◦ Very different demands and needs

◦ Manage inputs and outputs

◦ Projects are defined by

◦ Start time◦ End time◦ Defined work product

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About Agile

◦ Iterative and incremental

◦ Complete small portions in each delivery cycle

◦ Agile is an ideology for delivering projects, not a framework

◦ Used heavily in software development and IT environments

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Some Agile Methodologies

◦ Timeboxing – a fixed amount of time to work in

◦ Refactoring – changing internals without changing externals

◦ Backlogs – an ordered list of requirements

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KANBAN

What is Kanban?

◦ Developed by Toyota to manage just-in-time production◦ Uses cards on physical supplies to manage the supply chain

◦ Next order card is sent when current supply set is opened

Image by Jean-Baptiste Waldner

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Kanban in Software Development

◦ Methods were adopted for abstract work

◦ Think software development

◦ Kanban can combine with other agile methods

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The Kanban Board

◦ Basic board has 3 columns: to do, doing, done◦ Backlog items move forward as they progress◦ Backlog items can move backwards, if necessary

Image by Jeff.lasovski

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Kanban in the Classroom

◦ Courses look like projects

◦ There are some dependencies, but not a lot

◦ Weekly- or module-oriented course framework is implicitly timeboxing

So let’s kanban this!

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My Kanban Board

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A Kanban Board for this Presentation

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ALTERNATIVE METHODS

Scrum

◦ No manager, but rather a facilitator

◦ Stand-up meetings

◦ Burndown charts showing work left to do

◦ Might be applicable in group-work oriented classes, such as capstones

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DISCUSSION

Obvious Questions

◦ Isn’t this just putting your todo list on the web?

◦ How do students react to this?

◦ Can this work in a team teaching environment?

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Conclusions

◦ This can help manage a classroom

◦ It should be completely transparent to the student

◦ It should not interfere with classroom methods

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