General Information

• Lecturer: Prof. Hasso Plattner
• Teaching support: Anja Bog, Martin Grund, Johannes Wust
• 6 ECTS (graded)
• Enrollment until 02.11.2011. The contents of this lecture is new to a large extent, so students who have participated in earlier versions of this lecture may participate again.
• Schedule:
  • Introductory session: approx. 45 minutes on Monday, 17.10.2011, 11:30am, SNB E 9/10 (slides as pdf)
  • Design thinking workshop: 30.11./1.12.2011, 9:15 am - 5:30 pm at D-School, SNB, 2nd floor, Hasso Plattner High-Tech Park
  • Block seminar: 5 days - 20.2.-24.2.2012, 9:15 am at D-School, HPI Main Building
  • Group work on individual schedule in December and January, meetings with team tutors as needed
  • Submission deadline for the documentation is March 20, 11.59 pm CET, send your pdf to Anja Bog, (details as pdf)

Introduction

This lecture will be held in a Stanford-like teaching approach. The course is composed of two interwoven parts: Technological discussions and a design thinking project. This years topic of the design thinking project, also called the design thinking challenge, is the question: How might we leverage in-memory database technology to speed-up or enhance existing enterprise applications or even create new applications that were not possible without this technology to support everyday operations in the enterprise environment. The idea is to look into immutable concepts illustrated by real world examples. Topics related to the contents of Prof. Plattner's lecture "Trends and Concepts in the Software Industry I" will be taken up and reflected upon. The participation in "Trends and Concepts in the Software Industry I" is recommended as a preparation for this lecture, but not mandatory. From the design perspective, topics include the design thinking process, innovation and prototyping methodologies, need finding, human factors, and team dynamics. Participants experience a design thinking project embedded in the technological topics of this course. The seminar schedule consists of the following:

• We start with a 2-day design thinking workshop at the end of November where the basics of the design thinking methodology will be taught and applied in the context of our challenge. Students will experience a fast forward move through the design thinking process thereby establishing confidence in this process to go out to real company contacts and conduct interviews.
• The above mentioned interviews and following brainstorming, need finding and prototyping sessions will be scheduled individually per team and compose the second part of the seminar.
• The third part of the seminar comprises the block lecture with Hasso Plattner where ideas and prototypes will be tested through more interview sessions and finalized. The lecture concludes with the documentation of the prototype.

Lecture Material

• Design Thinking Workshop Day 1
  • Day 1 Overview
  • Design Thinking
  • In-Memory Basics I
• Design Thinking Workshop Day 2
  • Day 2 Overview
  • In-Memory Basics II
• Block Lecture
  • Agendas: Monday, Tuesday
  • Notes: technology basics, calculations, expectations
  • Testing/Feedback
  • Technology
  • Documentation details

Learning Experience

Participants will

• Enhance their creativity while working in teams
• Get insights into and apply the design thinking methodology
• Improve their presentation skills
• Get in contact with companies and establish interview skills
• Apply the technical concepts presented (In-Memory Database technology) to real world use cases

Grading

During the block lecture several team presentations and discussions will be held. The grade of the seminar will be determined by

• Engagement to discussions, the project and team work, intermediate presentations (30%),
• Viability, feasibility, and desirability of project results in the final presentation (40%),
• Documentation of the results (a written report - 20 p. LNCS including a screen cast/video/description of the prototype per team, 30%).

Reading Material

Please familiarize yourself with the general material:

• In-Memory Data Management: An Inflection Point for Enterprise Applications by Hasso Plattner, Alexander Zeier (please contact Andrea Baumgarten in order to borrow the book for seminar preparation).
• Book Chapter: Design Thinking by Plattner, H., Meinel, C., Weinberg, U., design THINKING – Innovation lernen, Ideenwelten öffnen. Pages 101-135 (please contact Andrea Baumgarten in order to borrow the book for seminar preparation).
• Developing Design Thinking Capabilities by Michael Barry and Sara L. Beckmann, comprehensive discussion about what it takes to become a Design Thinker.
• The art of prototyping in IT: Validating napkin drawings with users provides much more substantial feedback than validating a clickable software prototype. Here is a Java-Plug-in that helps you to convert your screens into napkin drawings.