Copenhagen School of Design and Technology

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Software as a Service product development

2022/2023
Danish title
Software as a Service produktudvikling
Study programme
Computer Science
Type of education
Full time education
Level of education
Academy Profession
Semester
4. semester
Duration of the subject/module
1 semester
Ects
30
Programme elements
Elective
Language
Danish and English
Start time
Autumn
Spring
Location
Guldbergsgade 29 N, København N
Subject number
3050430
Responsible for the subject(s)/modul(es)
Lars Kruse
Mikkel Wessel Nielsen
Keld Møller Marple
Stine Rørbech
  • Purpose and learning objectives

    The purpose of this elective is to facilitate the students to gain insights into the characteristics of SaaS Products and to enable them to become operational and able to manoeuvre diligently in the complexity of technology and interdisciplinary skills that constitute the design and development of SaaS products.

    You are welcome to participate if you have some prior knowledge and proficiency in either Business development, Software development or UX and digital media design.

    Students will potentially be screened for this elective through short interviews aiming to assess their motivation.

    Knowledge

    You will explore and utilise agile team methodologies, pretotyping (not a spelling mistake), validated learning loops, No-code/Low-code tools, serverless infrastructure, APIs, user segmentation, ideation & innovation, Data Driven design, Participatory Design processes and a large array of tools and technology stacks that support all the above in an asynchronous collaboration process.

    Skills

    You will learn how to navigate a value-based product development process, in close collaboration with an external Product Sponsor. and you ill practice how to engage and utilise a Community of Practice, to build professional relations as a mean to gain new insights.

    You will identify and react on emerging need for new knowledge and implement ways and techniques to acquire skills and perspective in-situ.

    You will be enabled to make design decisions, relevant to the designated role in the team exploiting the interdisciplinary skills relevant to the education programme while collaborating in the team.

    Competences

    You will organise and orchestrate workshop facilitation as a mean to obtain knowledge and move decision processes forward. You will master continuous task prioritisation and asynchronous collaborative dialogue. You will explore and verify a market fit for the SaaS product.

    You will elaborate, adapt and expand on knowledge and skills already introduced earlier in the education programme, but which requires deeper insights when assuming the designated role in the project.

    You will reflect upon the designated role in an interdisciplinary agile SaaS Product Development team. Including relations and dependencies to other roles in terms of collaborations as well as overlaps and potential conflicts.

  • Type of instruction
    This elective will invite and accept students from three different study programmes; Business Economics & Information Technology (BE-IT), Multimedia Design (MMD) and Software Programmer (DAT).

    The students will be organized in interdisciplinary, holistic, agile teams. Each team will be given a unique assignment to produce and release an actual SaaS product in collaboration with an external Product Sponsor— and to elicit data on end-user behaviour inside the product.

    Teams will be self-organized. Each team member will assume a designated role and responsibility — relevant to the team member’s individual study programme — and through this role contribute to the production, release and continuous improvement of a SaaS product.

    The team’s assignment will be commissioned by an external Product Sponsor, who presents a genuine problem, with an identified group of users who shall gain actual value from the SaaS product. The external Product Sponsor will be available for feedback, advise and participation through the entire semester.

    Focus is on learning — not teaching. Didactic principles in this elective will be based on Situated Learning (Lave & Wenger) and Reflective Practitioners (Schön). Actual learning materials will be elicited collectively and collaboratively among all teams and approached in a flipped classroom.

    The learning will be situated in a Community of Practice (Lave & Wenger), loosely organized through meetups, hackathons, and workshops with participation of both learners and old-timers from industry. The role of the traditional teacher will we replaced by a more contributing role as facilitator or advisor.

    All teams share a joint physical workspace, which will become the frame around the entire elective programme — a co-workspace. Teams will be spending considerable time with their assignment hosts.

    The team will jointly – throughout the entire project – maintain a task and worklog including recurring status summary briefs to the Product Sponsor. Writings will be in English.
  • Exam

    The learning outcomes of the exam are identical with the learning outcomes of the subject(s)/modul(es)

    Exam in one or more subjects
    Subject/module is tested standalone
    Written material shall be in English
    The oral exam is in English, but can be conducted in Danish if all team members wishes so.
    Type of exam
    Oral examination
    Team: Presentation of worklog+status briefs (portfolio)
    Each team member: oral, reflection on the assumed role in the team.
    Type of assignment
    Portfolio:
    - Worklog
    - status briefs
    Individual exam or group exam
    Group, 6-9 max participants
    Exam languages
    English
    Duration
    In teams of six or fewer members: 2 hours
    In teams larger than six is added 10 min for each additional member
    Permitted exam aids
    The teamet kan bring the aid and props they fine relevant.
    Available exam aids
    - Projektor (HDMI)
    - Loud speakers (HDMI/mini jack)
    - White board + pens
    Type of evaluation
    7-point grading scale
    Examiners
    Internal censure
    Exam criteria
    - Overall assessment of presentation, dialog and the presented material.
280
hours of teaching
542
hours of preparation
The figure shows the extent of workload related to the subject divided into different study activities.

In the subject Software as a Service product development you will receive 280 hours of instruction, which corresponds to 372 lessons (1 lesson = 45 min.) and 34% of your total workload for the subject.

The teaching primarily consists of the following activities: workshops, project work, interdisciplinary project-based teaching.
The preparation primarily consists of the following activities: collecting empiricism, searching for information.

Read about KEAs Study Activity Model

*KEA can deviate from the number of hours if this is justified by special circumstances