Agile For UX Practitioners

Agile for UX Practitioners
Anders Ramsay, Delve Conference, August 2009

About Me

UX + Agile:What Changes?What Stays the Same?Agile for Traditional Teams?

Agile?

Planning Poker
Agile Coach
Spikes
Extreme Programming
Backlogs
Scrum
Test-Driven Development
Story Cards
Customer
Sprints
Product Owner
Velocity
Standups
Daily Standups
Refactoring
Burndown
Pair Programming
Crystal Methods
Feature-Driven Development
Scrum Master
Adaptive Software Development
Dynamic Systems Development
Lean Development

Agile is a DesignMindset
Specific to Software
From a Developer Perspective…

Two Perspectives
UX
DEVELOPER

Sample Project
Two-week Vendor Bake-Off
Contrasts Traditional/Agile

Sample Project
Traditional
Agile

Traditional Lifecycle
We can’t start building anything in two weeks…
BUILD
DESIGN
Time

Agile Lifecycle
What is the Earliest Responsible Moment we can start building?
DESIGN
BUILD
Time
HUMAN/TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE

UX: Really? Let’s discuss how we can simplify it…
Dev: This is more complex than we thought…
Agile is People-Centered

Project Narrative
UX
2 weeks
1-2 Days

Agile is Open, Visible

You can start building sooner than you think

Project Narrative
Reflect, Adjust
UX
UX
Build 1
2 weeks
1-2 Days
2-3 Days

Agile Documents

Asking a Different Question…

Comprehensive
What is everything developers need to know?

Just Enough
etc.
What is the minimum needed to start building?

Specification Sketch

Designing is Building is Designing

Evolving the UI in Tandem with the Software

Document Cost-Benefit

Agile Documents
Yes, you can keep doing wireframes!but…
Design the delta.
For conversation.
As a means, not an end.

Project Narrative
REALITY
Reflect, Adjust
Reflect, Adjust
Build 2
Build 3
UX
UX
UX
Build 1
2 weeks

Adaptive
Lean
There is Only Us
Self-Organizing
Reality-Driven
Conversation-oriented
Iterative
Autonomous
Agile Mindset
Visible
People-Centered
Focused
Software-specific
Sustainable
Open
Solution-oriented
Technical Excellence
Light-weight
Safe

Getting Started

Step Zero: You and Your Team

Process is a Secondary Effect of People
—Alistair Cockburn

Beware Agile Orthodoxy and Ritual
From HenrikKniberg’s Blog at blog.crisp.se

The BigCorp Factor

Iterate the Transition

Takeaways

Agile + UX?

Agile
UX

Agile
UX
Mutually Empowering Opposites

Takeaways
Start with an Agile Mindset and all else will follow.
Develop your Developer Perspective.
Same UX Principles, New artifacts and methods.

Thanks!
@andersramsay
AndersRamsay.com
AgileExperienceDesign.org
http://ia.meetup.com/14/
http://www.meetup.com/agile-experience-design
rosenfeldMedia.com/books/agile-experience/