The Software Architect Code: Building the Digital World (edX)

The world is becoming increasingly digital and software is everywhere. Every company is affected by software so having the knowledge to excel in this industry is essential. This course will introduce the skills necessary to create software, but at the same time it is crucial to understand that succeeding in a digital world requires much more than to be just a good software developer. We will explain how people from different professions can work together in order to create innovative software. We will also present the most important activities for generating effective software products and services to meet tomorrow’s demands.

What you'll learn:

• Gain the skills needed to succeed as a software designer and software architect.
• Understand the role of a software architect in the digital world
• Learn the importance of capturing all essential user needs and applying the “Do it yourself” method to plan and build software pieces
• Explore the software design and testing activities addressing the new challenges of tech-focused times
• Understand new interaction paradigms, creativity and design methods that move the focus from the software to the humans who use it

Course Syllabus

PART I: Software Architects Talents
Go to the Renaissance to discover the Da Vinci talents and come back to the future to unveil the talents required for building a digital world.
Week 1: The Da Vinci Code
Understand the Da Vinci talents. We will show that software architects are adventurers, where imagination, optimism, courage, determinism, flexibility, the ability to predict, foresight, perseverance, continuous learning, and a desire to excel are essential ingredients.
Week 2: The Digital World Code
This week, we will travel to the future to decode the talents for working in high-creative teams and the best digital organizations in the world. We want that you understand the key elements to manage engagement, cooperation, innovation and success in a smart world lead by software.

PART 2: Envisioning Needs and Wishes
The art of understanding different prospects to classify and prioritize needs and wishes.
Week 3: Identifying needs
A holistic view of the mission and vision of a system to fulfill all essential needs and to think ahead.
Week 4: Do not reinvent the Wheel, no need!
In this week, software will be presented as an intangible asset that can be designed to be shared and reused.

PART 3: Designing & Testing
Drawing sketches and polishing their design. Looking for perfection
Week 5: Portray a Creator in the Age of Software
We will learn the process of Software Designing, with the creator as main role in the process, focusing on quality values.
Week 6: Looking for perfection
In this week, we show how the testing process is around the whole software architect work.

PART 4: Human Computer Interaction & Thinking Out of the Box
Get to know the main concepts and principles of human computer interaction, creativity and participatory methods that a modern software engineer should be familiar with.
Week 7: From software-centric to human-centric
In this week we will shift the focus from the software itself to the person who uses it and thus we will introduce the main concepts about human computer interaction that a software architect should be familiar with.
Week 8: Creativity and participatory design
We will introduce the need to combine creativity and participatory methods with software engineering practices to be able to think out of the box and imagine new applications.