Translate product ideas into tangible assets by creating wireframes, 3D renderings, prototypes, and minimum viable products (MVPs) to test assumptions and validate customer interests.
Designing the customer and user experience is essential to creating great products today. Gone is the old paradigm of “form follows function” model of design. The process must be iterative and follow the best product design and development processes. While designing a great user experience can be a lengthy and expensive process, there are approaches to doing it faster and smarter, without compromising results.
This essential product management course explains key design thinking principles around personas, story mapping, and prototyping. Product managers need to know and appreciate product designer tools and processes. By combining these principles with good scrum processes, you’ll learn to create great products that don’t sacrifice design for functionality or feasibility.
This course enables students to transition from ideas to prototyping and concept testing of their products and services. Students learn how best to effectively translate ideas into marketable offerings so that the best product and service ideas are harnessed and create real value for customers and the organization. Emphasis is placed on an integrated and interdisciplinary approach to engineering design, concurrent engineering, design for manufacturing, industrial design, and the business of new product development. Topics include design methods, modeling and simulation, material and manufacturing process selection, platform and modular design, mass customization, planning and scheduling.
Module 1: Introduction to Creative Design, Prototyping, and Testing
This module includes a welcome to the course, an orientation to our teaching approach and faculty, and an introduction to the product design and the development process.
Module 2: Development Processes and Organizations
The customer needs process. Lean UX overview. Diagrams, sketches, wireframes, and prototypes. Emerging technologies and your concept.
Module 3: Concept Generation and Selection
Concept generation overview. Concept selection overview. Product specifications. Establishing target specifications. Setting the final specifications.
Module 4: Product Design and Architecture
Industrial design overview. Industrial design process. Industrial design needs considerations. Design for the environment. Designing for the environment processes. Design for manufacturing. Design for manufacturing processes.
Module 5: Principles of Prototyping and User Experience
Ten tips for startups. Planning for prototyping. Service design. Mapping the user experience. Anatomy of an experience map.
Module 6: Wireframing and Prototype Models
Product architecture. Choosing a wireframing/UX prototyping tool. Android vs. Apple. Software development lifecycle prototype models pros and cons. Open source. Open source robotics.
Module 7: Robust Design Considerations
Robust design. Robust design process. Version control. User testing.
Module 8: Testing and Troubleshooting
Tips for testing and troubleshooting. Red team and blue team. Recovering from disaster. Strategies for recovery.
Module 9: Project Management
Project management fundamentals. Guidelines for project planning. Project execution.
Module 10: Scaling, Budgeting, and Outsourcing
Dangers of outsourcing. Adapting your products or services. Product development economics. Creating excellent presentations.
Module 11: Quality Control
Intellectual property. Patents. Platforms for finding talents. Warning signs.
Module 11: Quality Control
Intellectual property. Patents. Platforms for finding talents. Warning signs.
Cait von Schnetlage
Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute
University of Maryland
Cait von Schnetlage currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Maryland, College Park. She specializes in product management and project management. In academic and professional settings, she specializes in prototyping and rapid scalability.
Ms. von Schnetlage also serves as the CEO of Full Suite Solutions, which provides full stack software development services on federal contracts. Her experience with product development includes supporting large-scale government contracts and automation of backend corporate processes utilizing cloud based solutions and machine learning algorithms. Ms. von Schnetlage is highly adept at translating highly complex organizational needs into quantifiable specifications and applying hypothesis testing to ensure accuracy and requirement validation.
While leading product development projects, she applies a combination of Lean UX methodologies and user centered design. In addition to the technical specifications, she analyzes long-term longevity of a solution and plans for technological obsolescence resulting in eventual migration to newer systems. She is passionate about sustainable development and reducing the environmental impacts associated with inefficient design and manufacturing processes.
She holds an MBA and MA from Johns Hopkins University, and a BA from the University of Maryland, College Park. In 2017, she was a recipient of AFCEA’s 40 Under Forty award for contributions to STEM in the Defense arena.
Our no-cost pre-application is the first step to the formal application, and allows our admissions team to give you a preliminary assessment of the strength of your application.
