A presentation at DevRelCon London in in London, UK by Elisha Tan
Design Thinking: How do you design developer programmes? Elisha Tan, Founder TechLadies @elishatan @elishatan
Design Thinking: How I got my shit together. Elisha Tan, Founder TechLadies @elishatan @elishatan
agenda • Introduce myself • Programme design thinking framework • How to use framework @elishatan
Hi, my name is Elisha • Graduated with a Psychology degree • Learned coding from the community • Launched and failed said startup • Where are all the women? • Started TechLadies! • Build dev communities for fun and profit Check out my mad tech skills yo @elishatan
TechLadies is a community-led initiative for women to connect, learn, and grow in the tech industry. @elishatan
~4000 members in Asia 2 physical chapters >500 ladies trained >10 ladies in engineering roles @elishatan
TechLadies Bootcamp @elishatan
Create products for startups? Networking events? tech talks? Hackathons? Mentorship? PM bootcamp? Agile? Stuff for girls? Workshops? @elishatan
There’s got to be a better way to design programmes for developers! @elishatan
Product design thinking process is well-defined @elishatan
product Design thinking Credits: Smashing Magazine @elishatan
How might we adapt the product design thinking for programmes? @elishatan
Programme Design thinking: 6-Step Process Vision Understand Define Why is it important that we do this? What problem we are solving? Who are we solving the problem for? Leverage Test Ideate How can we maximise benefits? How well does our idea work? How can we solve this problem? @elishatan
Programme Design thinking step 1: Vision Vision Understand Define Why is it important that we do this? What is the problem we are solving for? Who are we solving the problem for? Leverage Test Ideate How can we maximise benefits? How well does our idea work? How can we solve this problem? @elishatan
vision Why are you doing this? What are your goals? What are the desired outcomes? @elishatan
Metrics • • • • • • • impressions signups downloads sentiment attendees mailing list jobs created • • • • • • • MAU/DAU ARPU adoption commits PRs interviews people trained @elishatan
We aim to increase women’s participation by creating opportunities for women in the tech industry. @elishatan
Let’s build a bootcamp! vision: Create opportunities that increase women’s participation in tech. @elishatan
Programme Design thinking step 2: understand Vision Understand Define Why is it important that we do this? Whatisproblem we are What the problem we are solving for? solving? Who are we solving the problem for? Leverage Test Ideate How can we maximise benefits? How well does our idea work? How can we solve this problem? @elishatan
understand What is the problem? How are people solving the problem now? Why are the current solutions inadequate? @elishatan
research • • • • Online Talk to ”competitors” Participant Observation Surveys • • • • Interviews Focus Groups Experiments Secondary Data Analysis @elishatan
@elishatan
research • Not everyone learns to become software engineers • Hard to stay disciplined learning from online sources • Workshops don’t go in-depth • “Free” leads to low completion rates • Programming bootcamp requires people to quit their jobs @elishatan
Let’s build a bootcamp! vision: Create opportunities that increase women’s participation in tech. understand: Market gap exists for women who want to switch careers. @elishatan
Programme Design thinking step 3: define Vision Understand Define Why is it important that we do this? What is the problem we are solving for? Who solving Who are are we we solving the problem for? the problem Leverage Test Ideate How can we maximise benefits? How well does our idea work? How can we solve this problem? @elishatan
define Who is the target audience? What are their dreams and challenges? Where can you reach them? @elishatan
User persona • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Name Photo Bio Demographics: Age, sex, income, location Personality Traits Motivations Goals and frustrations Preferred social media channels Tech skill Myers-Brigg personality types Hobbies and interests Education level Job responsibilities/duties Shopping and product research habits Credits: xtensio @elishatan
@elishatan TechLadies.co
user persona • • • • • • • • Clara Cheung 32 year old Currently works full-time in a non-tech industry Wants to make a career switch into the tech industry Not formally trained in CS Unable to quit her job to join a programming bootcamp Learning programming online (books, MOOC) and workshops, but need something more intensive Uses Github, Stack Overflow @elishatan
Let’s build a bootcamp! vision: Create opportunities that increase women’s participation in tech. understand: Market gap exists for women who want to switch careers. Define: Women, without formal CS education, who are actively trying to switch careers into tech. @elishatan
Programme Design thinking step 4: ideate Vision Understand Define Why is it important that we do this? What is the problem we are solving for? Who are we solving the problem for? Leverage Test Ideate How can we maximise benefits? How well does our idea work? How can How can we we solve solvethis this problem? problem? @elishatan
Ideate What are all the possible ideas? Which is the “best” idea? What idea gives you the shortest feedback loop? @elishatan
ideation methods • Encourage a brain dump of ideas then vote • Everyone writes an idea down and have the team evaluate/add onto an idea • Each participant brainstorms individually and merge all the ideas into one large idea map. @elishatan
deriving the best idea • Help women become software engineers • Learn by doing • Create a real product, not small prototypes • Something more intensive than workshops @elishatan
TechLadies Bootcamp is a 12-week part-time accelerated learning programme designed to help women with some basic programming background become professional programmers. Ladies are guided by industry experts to create products for non-profit organizations. @elishatan
Let’s build a bootcamp! vision: Create opportunities that increase women’s participation in tech. understand: Market gap exists for women who want to switch careers. Define: Women, without formal CS education, who are actively trying to switch careers into tech. Ideate: Paid part-time programming bootcamp building products for NGOs. @elishatan
Programme Design thinking step 5: test Vision Understand Define Why is it important that we do this? What is the problem we are solving for? Who are we solving the problem for? Leverage Test Ideate How can we maximise benefits? How How well welldoes doesour ouridea work? idea work? How can we solve this problem? @elishatan
test What is the best way to test this? What are the risks involved? What did you learn? @elishatan
testing methods • Solicit feedback from users • Run a small event • Create a prototype • Call it a pilot @elishatan
@elishatan
@elishatan
Lessons learned • It works! 30% of graduates found software eng jobs and internships • Secret sauce? Objective + Structure + Community • People want to help but need direction @elishatan
Let’s build a bootcamp! vision: Create opportunities that increase women’s participation in tech. understand: Market gap exists for women who want to switch careers. Define: Women, without formal CS education, who are actively trying to switch careers into tech. Ideate: Paid part-time programming bootcamp building products for NGOs. Test: Yay it worked! @elishatan
Programme Design thinking step 6: leverage Vision Understand Define Why is it important that we do this? What is the problem we are solving for? Who are we solving the problem for? Leverage Test Ideate How can How can we we maximise maximise benefits? How well does our idea work? How can we solve this problem? @elishatan
leverage What other value can you extract? What other goals can you achieve? What momentum can you continue? @elishatan
What to leverage for? • Marketing: Create content • Comms: Supplement narrative • Product: Drive adoption and feedback • Social good: Contribute back to society • Continuity: Plan for succession, fund other activities • Innovation: Source for new ideas @elishatan
supporting growth • Surface new ideas to grow TechLadies • Contribute as mentors, coaches, and speakers • Inspire fellow community members @elishatan
Let’s build a bootcamp! vision: Create opportunities that increase women’s participation in tech. understand: Market gap exists for women who want to switch careers. Define: Women, without formal CS education, who are actively trying to switch careers into tech. Ideate: Paid part-time programming bootcamp building products for NGOs. Test: Yay it worked! leverage: Invite grads as speakers, mentors, and organisers. @elishatan
Putting in all together @elishatan
Programme Design thinking: 6-Step Process Vision Understand Define Why is it important that we do this? What problem we are solving? Who are we solving the problem for? Leverage Test Ideate How can we maximise benefits? How well does our idea work? How can we solve this problem? @elishatan
Oon Xin Tian Software Engineer, Airhost “I felt extremely lost after being expelled from a Masters programme two years ago. My self-confidence was at an all-time low. Today, I am here standing up again to pursue my new-found dream.” @elishatan
Keep in touch! @elishatan elisha@techladies.co
Tech talks, hackathons, webinars, workshops… With so many ways to engage with developers, how do you decide on how and what to do in order to achieve specific goals? In this talk, I will share a people-centric process (inspired by the design thinking methodology) to creating developer programs that I’ve developed over the years building communities in Asia. I will walk you through this methodology through the lens of designing programs aimed at increasing gender diversity in tech.
You will walk away with a framework to start thinking about how you can design developer programs for fun and profit.
Here’s what was said about this presentation on social media.
for free. You
can too.