Sovelto Schedule

In the training industry, knowing one’s schedule is always a very important tool for the trainer: he needs to know what courses are still on, what courses have been cancelled, how many students he will have and information about his students’ level.
For the in-house trainers, this need was well met by FC Sovelto‘s own course management system, combined with the Outlook Exchange Server and Outlook clients. But for the freelance trainers working with the company, finding out information about one’s schedule was a very cumbersome and time-consuming task.

Create a solution that would allow easy access to up-to-date course-related information for the freelance trainers working with the company. As a side-goal, gather knowledge and experience about the Scrum process, integrating user-centered design methods with Scrum and using Scrum in the Visual Studio Team Edition environment.

For a better understanding of the company process and the trainers’ needs, I did interviews with a part of the trainers, gathered relevant data and created personas to guide the design decisions. This information was integrated in the Scrum process: playing the role of ‘user representative’, I communicated relevant knowledge to the ‘product owner’, allowing negotiation and balancing the needs of the users with those of the company.
During the project, I kept contact with the target final users, showing project status and receiving feedback.

The final results were a ready-to-deploy system serving the needs of its users, practical knowledge about applying user-centered design methods to the Scrum process and a ready-for-teaching course material on using Scrum in the Visual Studio Team Edition environment.