GCEC 2016

ENTREPRENEURSHIP WITHIN
UNIQUE DISCIPLINES
Alex Cowan

2015 COWAN+

THE PROBLEM

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OUCH
October 1, 2013 roll-out of
HealthCare.gov
The design of the website was overseen by the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services and built by a number
of federal contractors, most prominently CGI Group of
Canada. The original budget for CGI was $93.7 million,
however this grew to $292 million prior to launch of the
website. While estimates that the overall cost for
building the website had reached over $500 million
prior to launch,

In Bloomberg Businessweek journalist Paul Ford summed

up the issue by remarking, "Regardless of your
opinions on the health-care law, this is the wrong way
to make software."

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The Secret Startup That Saved the Worst

Website in America
How a team of young people, living in a repurposed
McMansion in Maryland, helped rebuild Healthcare.gov
By Robinson Meyer July 9, 2015

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June 11, 2015 by

Paul Ford
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THE SOLUTION

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YOUR HAPPY PLACE

(you)

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IS IT THE IDEA?

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IS IT BEING TECH/CODE SAVVY?

(this is not real)

(coding experience helps,
but not like this)
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THE ANSWER IS GRINDING IT OUT

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THE VENTURE DESIGN PROCESS

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THE VENTURE DESIGN PROCESS

OPTIONS

COST
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SOFTWARE DESIGN CLASS

VETTED
VENTURE
IDEA

SOFTWARE
DESIGN

Interview Guide
Proposition Design
Customer Interviews Assumptions
Personas
Motivation Tests
Problem Scenarios

User Stories
Comparables/
Patterns
Prototypes
Usability Tests

7 Weeks
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LESSONS LEARNED
1.

Coloring Book/Templates Help

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COLORING BOOK

ref.alexandercowan.com/pdesign
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LESSONS LEARNED
1.
2.
3.
4.

Coloring Book/Templates Help

Focus on Motivation vs. Usability
Emphasize (Directed) Field Work Often
Delineate Investigation vs. Implementation

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COURSERA COURSE (ONLINE)

Getting Started:
Agile Meets
Design Thinking

Running Product
Design Sprints

Managing an
Agile Team

Testing
with Agile

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SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT CLASS

SOFTWARE
DESIGN

Static Page
(HTML + CSS)

Interactive Page
Javascript

Focal Updates:
1. Usability &
Interaction
2. General
Functionality
3. Algorithms & Data
Structures

WORKING
SOFTWARE

7 Weeks
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LESSONS LEARNED
1.
2.
3.

Worked: Flipped Classroom via Code Academy

Yes, MBAs Can Write Some Code
Code Academy to JS Fiddle to Wordpress

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FINI
Slides

bit.ly/gcec2016

Venture Design

bit.ly/vdesign

Coursera Class:
Agile Development

bit.ly/hiagile

bit.ly/go-dig
Software Design Class
Software Development Class bit.ly/sw-dev

Get in touch!

acowan@alexandercowan.com
@cowanSF

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