When companies adopt an agile development environment, UX teams often feel like they just lost their seat at the table. It’s never easy to change, but by adapting your UX practices to accommodate agile, you can have the impact on design you always wanted.
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Maximizing UX Impact in Agile: Mixing Agile and Lean UX
1. Maximizing the Impact of UX
in an Agile Environment:
Mixing Agile and Lean UX
John Whalen, Ph.D.
Principal, Strategy & User Experience
Brilliant Experience
2. Research
Stakeholder Interviews
Field Research
Competitor Reviews
Expert Reviews
Strategy and Ideation
Strategy Workshop
Design Studio
Rapid Prototyping
Iterative Refinement
UX and Design
IA & Flow
Interaction Design
Concept Realization
Visual Design & Branding
3. Agenda
‣ Part 1: The Rise of Agile
‣ Part 2: Mixing Agile & Lean UX
‣ Part 3: Lessons Learned on Adopting Lean UX & Agile
10. To help you understand what “this” is,
let’s play: ‘Name that Methodology’
11. 1 2 3 4
Empathize with
the audience
you are
designing for
Brainstorm
possible
designs
Build a
representation of
one or more of
your ideas
PrototypeIdeateResearch
Test your ideas
for feedback
Test
12. 1 2 3 4
Empathize with
the audience
you are
designing for
Brainstorm
possible
designs
Build a
representation of
one or more of
your ideas
PrototypeIdeateResearch
Test your ideas
for feedback
Test
Design
Thinking
31. Will Evans, TLC Labs
‣ Good source for relation between
Kanban, Cynefin, Design Thinking,
Lean UX and cognitive science.
‣ Sure to throw in a quote from
Sartre, Kierkegaard or Wittgenstein
32. Bill Scott, PayPal
‣ Developer by trade, but strong proponent
for UX/Dev partnership and dev flexibility
to accommodate user needs
33. Andrew Crow, GE
‣ Good resource for how to do Lean UX
with standards at scale (like all of GE)
42. Client 1: Major Tech Company
‣ Revenue: $11.5 billion
‣ Employee Count: 70,000+
!
‣ Needed to blend UX (long term research) with Agile sprints (yikes!)
43. Client 1: Major Tech Company
Sprint 0 Sprint 1 Sprint 2Dev
UX
Sprint 1 Iteration Sprint 2 Iteration Sprint 3 Iteration
Time
Sprint 1 Support Sprint 2 Support
44. Client 1: Major Tech Company
Successes:
‣ Much better communication with developers.
‣ More influence in product design.
!
Difficulty
‣ Still cultural challenge (UX needs 6 months of research to produce wireframe).
‣ Some PMs / Dev still want all screens in advance + “spec”.
‣ Challenged to keep up when one UXer has to do both just-in-time work and
work for future sprints simultaneously.
47. Client 2: NASDAQ/NYSE Watchdog
‣ Review 6 Billion trades daily
‣ Employee Count: 3,400 employees
!
‣ Two roles:
- Anthropological work, help build user stories.
- Work on current sprint on immediate needs of developers.
48. Client 2: NASDAQ/NYSE Watchdog
Sprint 0 Sprint 1 Sprint 2Dev
UX
Time
Sprint 1 Support Sprint 2 SupportUX Research
49. Client 2: NASDAQ/NYSE Watchdog
Successes:
‣ UX deeply integrated into process because of senior management support.
‣ Doing small tests with users for sprints.
!
Difficulties:
‣ Heavily focused on just-in-time work.
‣ Difficult to get enough “design thinking” done during a sprint.
51. Client 3: Major US Government Agency
‣ Founded 1862 during the Civil War by President Lincoln
‣ Works with 144 million Americans
!
‣ Role:
- Developing prototype of new tools for individuals using an iterative, Agile UX
approach.
- Assisting Agile development of new systems for every American.
52. Client 3: Major US Government Agency
Sprint 0 Sprint 1 Sprint 2
Dev
UX
Time
Sprint 3
Sprint 0 Sprint 1 Sprint 2
Sprint 0 Sprint 1 Sprint 2
Sprint 4 Sprint 5 Sprint 6 Sprint 7
UX
53. Client 3: Major US Government Agency
Successes:
‣ Doing small tests with users within sprints.
‣ Well ahead of developers, but including developers as we go along.
‣ Prototype + Style Guide is the product definition.
!
Difficulties:
‣ Development somewhat disjointed from UX, though getting better.
‣ Crazy pace when working on two different sprints simultaneously.
55. Agile UX Secret 1:
Set the stage for UX’s role with
Strategy Session / Design Studio.
56. CEO: I know you had an agenda,
but let’s just sketch our ideas
anyway...
57. Strategy Session / Design Studio
Get internal focus on
what matters.
Prioritize your
audiences, define
them and scenarios.
Brainstorm ways to
satisfy 1 & 2.
IdeationAudience NeedsBusiness Needs
Get stakeholders on
board with conceptual
direction.
Sketching
1 2 3 4
58. Agile UX Secret 2:
UXers need to be prepared
to get ahead of developers
AND stay with them.
59. Client 1: Major Tech Company
Sprint 1 Sprint 2Dev
UX
Sprint 1 Iteration Sprint 2 Iteration
Time
Sprint 1 Support Sprint 2 Support
74. Agile + Lean UX Secrets
!
1. Set the stage with Strategy Session / Design Studio
2. UXers need to get ahead of developers AND stay with them
3. Make wireframes “the spec”
4. Conduct quick, focused research