CDO School enrollment is open + big updates to our programming
It’s official! Enrollment for CDO School is now open.
We've just rolled out a pretty sizable update to our programming, and we'd like to share more about that change with you.
Our cohorts have been very successful, and there's room to improve
Second Wave Dive (the company behind CDO School) has been rebuilding education for design leaders from the ground up for the past four years. Our focus has been on what is relevant and impactful today, particularly for those who have moved into management. Our participants have grown their influence as leaders and demonstrated real impact at companies like Google, Vimeo, Mural, Etsy, DocuSign, ANZ, and more.
Historically we've sold a single course as an 8-week intensive cohort. Each cohort was sold through an application process and consisted of a blend of asynchronous and live programming. On average, we've had ~35 students per cohort and participants from over 20 countries. Weekly, we get messages from our members about a meeting that went surprisingly well, a business case they successfully presented, or the impact they demonstrated with actual metrics.
While this model has worked well (over 700 students!), it's meant that anyone who enrolled committed to 5-6 hours a week of work. Over eight weeks, that's a lot of extra work! Our most frequent feedback is, "I wish I could spend more time on this one topic." Given our desire to keep things at 5-6 hours per week and spread out over eight weeks, this model needed to be revised for deeper topic-specific learning. Since cohorts have been the most valued aspect of our training, we needed to find a way to make them even more relevant.
After running these programs for four years, we’ve learned that all the material is very relevant. Still, depending on where you are in your career or what situations you’re dealing with, some content is good enough as on-demand, while other materials need deeper dives with our cohort structure.
So, we've changed things up a bit. CDO School is now an annual membership.
A playbook to make design more relevant and valued by business
We've made everything inside of CDO School available immediately when you join, and rather than one cohort, you'll get the help you need most when you need the help.
Our courses provide the instructional backdrop, our playbook provides the accountability and engagement to help you implement the lessons at your job, and our community offers the support you need when you need it most. This is why we don't focus on only one type of learning.
Simply put, when you lead Design, Design is the product. We help you mature that product by:
Driving, feeling, seeing, and having an impact beyond your craft
Prioritizing work, influencing cross-functional partners, building trust, improving the experience for users, measuring impact, communicating clearly, and confidently leading healthy, high-performing design teams
Learning business, but also relationship, communication, and strategy skills
Exposing you to as many other scenarios and ways of thinking as possible
Teaching you how to anticipate, make bets, and communicate the implications of design decisions on the business and vice versa. I guess, ultimately, it’s confidence, right? We want you to be confident that you know what you're doing and not simply reacting to new trends, frameworks, or speculation.
The new approach gives you more control and opportunity with your learning at a lower price. We think it's a better overall experience as well.
What you get with CDO School Membership
Membership is based on an annual plan with on-demand course access, live events, and a virtual community.
Here are the details:
Get immediate access to all 13 (and growing) on-demand courses.
Our courses cover systems approaches to Measure Design with Confidence, creating a Design Org Strategy, gaining business acumen in a Business FUN01 way, and much more.
You can follow our original 8-week program or take courses individually.
You can receive a certificate of completion for each course you complete.
Get access to our popular live events
AMAs with respected design leaders
How-to topics such as Financial Literacy, creating North Star Metric Maps, and Estimating ROI
Beta workshops; test early editions of new materials with us before we go public with them
Get full access to the Second Wave Dive community
You have enough Slack in your life; this is intentionally not Slack
100s of resources
40+ downloadable templates (Figma, Mural, Miro, Docs, Sheets, etc.)
45+ video replays from prior community events
400+ active community members
Weekly community events and syncs
You get all of this for $300/year.
We're really excited to help you get unstuck and position yourself to succeed as a leader. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please feel free to contact us at hey@secondwavedive.com.
