InnoDev Workshop: A One Day Introduction to Combining Design Thinking, Lean Startup and Agile Software Development

Software innovation is a core differential factor for organizational survival to deliver faster, better, and more cost effective software solutions. Accordingly, different approaches to innovations have been developed, e.g. Design Thinking from the field of design, Lean Startup from the field of entrepreneurship, and agile development approaches from the field of software engineering. There are increased research efforts to investigate how to combine these approaches. However there is a lack of knowledge on how to train professionals in applying and integrating these approaches. This article describes a one-day training workshop based on the InnoDev model, developed in former research. InnoDev combines Design Thinking, Scrum and Lean Startup and is targeted at software developers, designers, and project managers in companies ranging from startups and SMEs to multinationals. Specifically, this article describes the workshop format and reports on the participants perceptions of the combined approach and the workshop experience. Overall participants had a positive experience in our workshop, became aware of new tools and techniques for software development, and perceived the combination of three innovation approaches as applicable and beneficial within their companies.