Agile Design Thinking & Customer Journey Mapping (ADT)

Design Thinking is a collection of principles and methods that has been applied by designers for decades. Good designers continually put themselves in the shoes of the (future) users of their product. They explore their world and systematically analyse the way the product is used.

Ever since the rise of Agile working, Product Owners and other substantive experts also have a responsibility to understand their customers, or multiple customer groups. To make your work easier, we at Gladwell Academy developed this course: Design Thinking for Agile Product Development. Among other things, you’ll learn:

During this two-day course, you learn the theory behind design thinking and we’ll connect that to the application of the principles in an Agile team. The course is a well-balanced mix of cases, individual exercises, team exercises, and theory. The course will enable you to develop better and more creative solutions and innovate more quickly and with more success.

Customer Journey Mapping
A customer journey map helps you to expose the ‘pain’ (challenges, barriers) your customers are experiencing in dealing with your product or service. It visually and narratively clarifies where there are opportunities for improvement. During the course, you’ll work on your own situation as much as possible; do take as many of your colleagues to this course as you’d like!

Building personas
Who is your ideal customer? How does he or she work or live? What does he or she appreciate about your product? Where can you find him or her on the internet, and in the real world? By distinguishing several ideal customers, you’ll be better equipped to tailor your product to every customer group.

Each day starts at 9 am and ends at 5 pm, including break and lunch.

Day 1: Morning

• Design Thinking: origin and principles
• Customer Experience: customers at the centre
• Interview and observation techniques

Day 1: Afternoon

• Customer journey maps
• Mapping your customer’s journey
• Identifying and prioritizing areas to improve

Day 2: Morning

• Generating Ideas: developing creative solutions
• Making prototypes
• Testing hypotheses

Day 2: Afternoon

• Designing for different personas
• Design thinking tools, like Design Sprints and Lean Start-up
• Applying Design Thinking to your day-to-day work

This course was developed for anyone who wants to grow in their role by learning to understand and apply the principles of design thinking. The course is especially well-suited to Scrum Masters, Product Managers, Customer Journey experts, entrepreneurs and Agile team members. On request, we organize trainings for Agile teams who want all its team members to become design thinkers together.