learning to play ux rugby - why your agile ux adoption is failing and what to do about it

@ANDERSRAMSAY / #AGILEUX

Why your agile ux adoption is failing and what to do about it.Learning to Play UX Rugby

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Saturday, December 1, 12


My introduction to Agile...



My introduction to Agile...

“There’s a whole team of developers and I’m the only UX designer. They’re building features faster than I can design them. I can’t keep up!”

Feeding the beast

“Yes, we technically delivered all the features this sprint, but looking at the big picture, the design’s an incoherent mess!”

Sprint Tunnel-Vision

“Our PO’s under pressure to deliver the next release and signing off on features despite crap-ass usability. Help!”

Half-Baked UX

“Yup, we’re Agile. We’ve been sprinting and doing stories and what-not for about nine months now and are almost ready to start development.”

AGILEFALL/WATERFAGILE



“What is the Agile process?”“Where does the UX designer fit into an Agile team?”“How do I fit my UX design work into a couple weeks?“What does an Agile functional spec. look like?”“When do we hand UX designs off to devs?”“How does a UX designer work 1-2 sprints ahead of developers?”etc.

One source of the problem...



One source of the problem...“Where on a bicycle does the steering wheel go?”



Traditional Relay Race- Team members mostly run alone.- Communication occurs mainly through document hand-offs.- One big crossing of the finish line.



Agile Rugby Game-Intensive and continuous collaboration.-Communication through direct collaboration.-Reach the finish line early and often to win the game.

UX

Biz

DevGDPM

BA



A Relay Race MeetingNot designed for collaboration.

Slow debugging of issues, differences in understanding.

What about…?

But I thought…

Whaa…?

Our top goal is to…but what’s most important is that we…tho what we really must do is to…



A Rugby Game Meeting WorkshopAn intensive passing game across roles/perspectives.

Iterating toward shared understanding.



Collaboration-Centered DesignBuy a FeatureCardstormingCollaborative CharteringDesign Studio

DotvotingExperience MappingIdeation Clearinghouse

Paired Interviews

Product BoxProduct Road MapProvisional PersonasSpeed Boat Story Mapping...and many more.

A new UX designer toolkit...



Traditional UXDesign, Usability

What are we making?

Agile UX

How do we make it?

Collaboration, Delivery

Lean UX

Are we making the right thing?

Measuring,validatingproduct/market fit.

Startup



Visioning



Design Studio (Divergent Variation)

Warmup/Raw Materials

Capturing the imagined final product. Can be completed in an hour or less.


Focus/Boundaries

SketchingTimebox Critique



Cardstorming- Warms up brain and hands.- 3-5 minute timebox.- Each participant writes as many

features they can think of on separate stickies.

- Becomes a feature palette for sketching.







SketchingTimebox

Focus/Boundaries



Sketching Timebox- 5m timebox.- Ensure safety.- Everyone in the room sketches.- Sketch individually.- No rules.- Clarify that this is research, not

design.







SketchingTimebox CritiqueFocus/

Boundaries



Critique- 2m round-robin, then open crit.- Take careful notes, attach to the

respective sketches.- Look for and work to resolve vision

differences.



Designing with Workshops


Learning, applying, and recombining workshop patterns.

Generating Raw Materialse.g. with Cardstorming

Working in small timeboxesIntensive, focused, productive

Cross-disciplinary CollaborationE.g. with pairing, timeboxed critiques, pitches.



Detailed Design



PairingAn intensive one-on-one passing game.Continuous problem debugging and knowledge distribution.

Tete-a-tete Pairing at NeedFeed: http://nerdfeed.needfeed.com/blog/2011/10/pairing-desks/


http://nerdfeed.needfeed.com/blog/2011/10/pairing-desks/

http://nerdfeed.needfeed.com/blog/2011/10/pairing-desks/


X-Pairing (Cross-Functional)Designing across dimensions. Allows for less/lighter documentation, fewer hand-offs.

Mike Long, Thoughtworks Studios



A cross-dimensional passing gameEach medium/perspective informs the other.

paper build html/css



Designing while building



Designing while Building

- Supporting the current sprint- Preparing for the next sprint- Maintaining a whole product

More a logistics than design challenge.



Automate Collaboration with CadencesApply Agile approach to planning to help ensure whole team is designing together.Can also be applied to field research, usability testing and other UX activities.



Research



Agile UX Collaboration, Delivery

Lean UX Measuring,validatingproduct/market fit.

Traditional UXDesign, Usability

Startup



SHIPPING = DONEAgile says...



SHIPPING IS ONLY THE BEGINNING



Outcome-Driven Research “Is this user-friendly?” vs “Would you pay for this?”

Continuous rather than up-front research, enabling integration with Agile.



Learning to Play UX Rugby...

“Keep doing what you’re doing,but do it smaller, faster and continuously.”

—William Pietri



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