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(Stephen Downes) So, hello everyone.

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I'd like to state and for the record,[br]

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I love the blue dots.

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(LAUGHTER)

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I've been sitting there[br]watching the blue dots.

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So, I've been cast in the role of [br]the person who finds the problems

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with the topic that we're all praising.

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I do like agile design, I like it a lot.

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And I like the concept of [br]agile <i>learning</i> design,

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I like it a lot.

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But, you know, I've been in the field [br]of programming for many years.

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I've been in the field of learning design [br]for many years.

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I've worked on small projects,[br]I've worked on big projects,

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I've been the peon [br]at the bottom of the pile

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and currently I'm the program leader[br]responsible for producing outcomes.

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So I've seen it from different angles.

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And there's so many ways it can go wrong,

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especially when we move from the [br]fairly static domain of software design

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to the far less static domain[br]of learning design.

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That's learning design.[br]

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It's the least agile thing [br]you'll ever see.

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That's actually a graphic from IMS

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which produced the learning design [br]specification.

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That's supposed to be [br]pretty open and flexible,

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It's like a play with a director and roles[br]and all of that.

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But, you know, once you're into the thing,

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there isn't a whole lot of flexibility [br]happening

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and it leads to questioning just [br]what is it that we're up to

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when we are talking about [br]agile learning design?

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Are we talking about [br]agile 'learning design'

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or are we talking about [br]the design of agile learning?

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Two different things,

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and it seems to me that [br]it doesn't make sense

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to give the instructional designers[br]all that freedom and flexibility

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if we're going to march students[br]lockstep through

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a predefined kind of process.

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Here's what agile learning design[br]ought to look like.

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There's a flow.

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This is agile design generally, right?[br]

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And it's an iterative thing,

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and yet people don't talk [br]about that so much

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but it's an iterative thing.

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Each iteration is like designing a full[br]and complete product,

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and then you might spin off [br]some side things, some prototype things

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as you need to, but, you know, [br]version 1, version 2,

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you're doing the same thing over again.

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No course in the world,[br]well, maybe not no course,

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but few courses in the world [br]are designed that way.

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Courses progress from Lesson 1, [br]Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4.

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They don't cover all of geometry [br]and then all of geometry in more detail

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and all of geometry in more detail.

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It's a different way of thinking[br]about the process.

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So, one of the major concepts[br]in agile learning design,

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in agile design generally, it's the Scrum.

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The Scrum is basically a self-organizing[br]development team.

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It is originally drawn from the idea that

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programmers are the smartest people [br]in the world and do not need management.

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No, I'm just kidding, but there is [br]the idea here that

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the programmers know how to program, and[br]they know how to produce the outcomes,

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if they're left to do the job for [br]themselves, to organize for themselves.

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And indeed, in the Scrum meeting,[br]as you are mapping out the task,

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each of the tasks, in the Scrum itself,[br]selected by the programmer.

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So, they're volunteering to jump in,[br]to do these things.

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They're taking commitments on themselves,[br]they're specifying how much time,

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how much effort will be required [br]to produce the commitment.

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So, OK: that's good[br]but this doesn't happen by magic.

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It takes time, and agile [br]is typically employed

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in larger software development projects.

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But when we're doing learning design,[br]we're doing something a lot smaller

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and a lot more precise.

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The question came up earlier, you know:

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"What about, you know, high-volume[br]instructional design?"

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Well, high-volume instructional design:[br]you don't have time for 3,4,5,6,7 weeks

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of your development team [br]organizing itself.

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Another problem:

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as your projects get bigger -- and we've [br]worked on some very large projects --

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your teams get very large.

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If you think about [br]all the different people who can,

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and eventually will get involved[br]in the design of your learning,

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or in the delivery of your agile learning,

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you've got designers, you've got[br]subject matter experts,

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you've got programmers, you've got[br]human interaction specialists, etc.

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......... (check) do you get a very large,[br]very complex team.

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As you get larger teams, you will not[br]generate more efficiency, it's well known:

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you generate less efficiency.

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So, what's the solution?[br]Split the teams.

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OK. Now you have competing development [br]teams working on the same project.

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This sounds, like, you know, OK, [br]we've split the task, it's great.

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But when you split the task,

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you now have two different groups [br]of people with different objectives,

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different responsibilities.

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They're competing often for resources,[br]they're competing often for priority.

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We have a project where we had [br]two agile teams.

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We ended up with two versions [br]of the thing that we were developing.

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Basically, they had -- they didn't split[br]into functional groups,

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they -- what's the word for it? [br]errh one-cell devide: mitosis --

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So basically, we got two small versions[br]of the project we were trying to create.

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Another pitfall:

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if you try to organize your groups into,[br]you know, OK,

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this group will do <i>this</i> part of it,[br]this group will do <i>that</i> part of it,

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you get specialized Scrums.

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So now, nobody's working on [br]the final project and the final product.

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And there is the danger -- I've seen this[br]and we've had this:

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in effect, I'm living this [br]at this very moment

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where everybody, all the teams [br]want to do the analysis bit,

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or the rapid prototyping bit.

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But we're trying to bring a product [br]to actual users, at the end.

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We want it to be a deliverable product.

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Nobody wants to do the last stage[br]of error testing, of hardening the code.

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That's the least popular scrum.

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So they go back to they are wanting [br]to do prototyping again.

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Finally -- well, not quite finally[br]but we're getting there --

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who is the product owner?

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In the Scrum process, [br]you're delivering outcomes

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and the idea is that, [br]as you go through each spring,

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which is short-term cycle[br]through your development process,

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you're producing outcomes,[br]you're producing deliverables

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and these deliverables [br]are delivered to the product owner

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who will set the deliverable,[br]and even more importantly,

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define the conditions for the completion[br]of that deliverable.

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Did you do it or not?[br]How do you know?

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Well, you have to have certain criteria:[br]pass this test, reproduce this function.

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It has to be really solid [br]and ........ (check)-free.

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Well, that good in education -- Sorry, [br]that's good in software development,

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your product owner is your client,

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perhaps your architect, [br]somebody like that.

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They know what they want.

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Education is completely different.

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In education, there is [br]no product owner per se.

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Think about it, think about the different[br]populations that are involved in learning.

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There is the end user, [br]also known as the student,

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who, in the typical instructional design[br]process, does not show up until

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after the instructional design [br]has been done.

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It makes it very hard to be agile.

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There is the subject matter expert,[br]also known as the professor.

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The professor has his or her own ideas[br]of what this deliverable must be.

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Then there is the administrator, [br]the dean or the president,

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or the Department of extended learning,[br]or whatever,

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who have other objectives of, then [br]revenue objectives,

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or course completion objectives:[br]they have their own definition.

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All of these definitions are different.

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I guarantee you they are conflicting[br]and they are competing.

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You can't just pick one, [br]because if you pick one,

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you're not being agile for the others.

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What's worse?

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To have not only competing interests,[br]to have different levels of expertise.

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We're designing this system right now,

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where we're trying to create [br]agile learning itself.

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This is -- I'm not going to talk [br]about that,

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that's not the purpose [br]of this particular talk --

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but but the ideas here is that[br]as the learning is unfolding,

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the process, the outcomes, [br]the deliverables and all of that

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can change [br]as the needs of the learner change.

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Very ambitious, really hard.

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We have to think about learning [br]differently, in order to do that.

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Well, we've got our development teams.

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Our development teams were raised[br]in the traditional educational system.

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<i>Their</i> idea of education [br]and online learning is:

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create some videos, put them online.

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Well, if we're iterating old world project[br]the first version of the project,

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also known as [br]the minimally viable product,

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it's going to be pretty simple and it's [br]going to be something that you could do

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with fairly traditional methods.

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And your programmers and developers,[br]all other things being equal,

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will fall back on the traditional methods.

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Because they're not being challenged[br]with the minimal viable product.

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The end goal where you want to get to[br]is something really flexible and dynamic,

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but by the time you get to stage 5 or so,

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they've built many, many [br]static structures,

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because that's what it took to [br]the minimally viable product

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at each release, at each iteration.

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So you have to start over.

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And you start over and everybody agrees,

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OK the project is about something[br]a lot more flexible than that

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and you start developing again[br]and the same sort of problem happens

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because your developers and your designer

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did not acquire that expertise [br]in the meantime.

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So they go back on what they already know.

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So there's a difficulty here.

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In instructional design, we're attempting[br]to create an outcome

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that is not part of the skill set of the[br]people producing the product

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that results in the instructional design.

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Finally, learning objectives.

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This is the madder thing, right?

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And I get this one all the time: we do[br]connectivist-style MOOCs,

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the connectivist-style MOOC, we say[br]there is no curriculum,

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it's not about acquiring a certain [br]predefined body of content,

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because we want to meet [br]participants' needs

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as they go through the course, and [br]these needs are different for every person

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and these needs change over time.

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And it should be up to the participant,[br]who ought to be the product owner,

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to define what success is and [br]define what the outcome should be.

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It's a moving target.

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Nobody who funds education [br]wants to deal with that. Nobody.

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Every last one of them wants to see[br]course completions, certificates,

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competencies, curricular outcomes.

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They want them defined ahead of time,[br]they want them approved

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by the curriculum board or [br]the school board or whoever is in charge.

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All of this must be set ahead of time.

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And then you're supposed to go on ..... (check)

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It is two very contradictory perspectives [br]at work here.

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It's not possible to do agile learning,[br]much less agile learning design

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in an environment where the structures[br]and the outcomes are predefined.

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That's meek (check), that's my short talk[br]and I thank you very much.

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(LAUGHTER - APPLAUSE)