Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) is an economically important legume. The agronomic characteristics of this crop such as days to flower, growth habit and seed yield affect breeding strategies. However, little is known about the genomic regions controlling these traits. Therefore, discovering the genetic architecture underlying important agronomic traits can accelerate breeding via marker assisted selection (MAS) in addition to providing genomic and biological information. Genome wide association studies (GWAS) are currently the method of choice to find the genomic regions associated with traits of interest using a population of unrelated individuals. It takes advantage of the historic recombinations that exist in the population to map the traits at a higher resolution. The availability of a reference genome in common bean has paved the way for higher throughput and more accurate genomic research including the discovery of new knowledge and development of new tools. In the first experiment we conducted GWAS using a panel of 280 diverse genotypes from the Middle American gene pool and about 15,000 SNPS with minor allele frequency of 5% and greater to map seven important agronomic traits in common bean. We were able to detect known and new genomic regions with strong candidate genes associated with these traits. In the second experiment we used sequence data from 19 genotypes from different bean market classes to develop a panel of insertion-deletion (InDel) markers that can be used for MAS as well as other genetic and genomic studies. These user-friendly, cost-effective, and co-dominant markers were tested for their efficiency and application. They demonstrated utility in a medium throughput genetic map construction and diversity analysis.