Why education needs Agile

 

As part of my continuing series on Agile practices and techniques that extend outside the boundaries of software development, I stumbled upon a couple resources that resonate with me as a one time student and now part time faculty instructor for continuing education programs in project management for schools such as UCLA, UC Irvine and the University of Redlands.  This also includes for profit and volunteer PM and PMP training programs that I get called into periodically.

• Close collaboration and feedback from the students – students are in a very practical sense my customers, since they paid to take the courses and training and my role as paid facilitator requires me to ensure they are getting the educational and training services through close collaboration, open dialog and constant feedback  
• Continuous and iterative development of educational topics – Though my syllabus is planned out ahead of time, I have to be flexible enough to adapt to each class I teach.  Various students have multiple needs and if a topic that engages and interests them catches wind, then it’s my duty to incorporate it and adjust my schedule.
• Transparency and student focus – I incorporate a form of stand up meetings in which the students and I review what we learned and how it could be better, what’s on the agenda and schedule for the next assignment, and if there are any impediments getting in the way of the students and what I can do to remove them.  This creates a high level of transparency and forces me to focus on what the students want, not what I think they want.