Making
Agile Work JONATHAN FOLLETT
DAN PICKETT
for Design REFRESH BOSTON
APRIL 29, 2009

OVERVIEW
• The Design and Development Process Survey
• A Quick Introduction to Agile Development
• The User Experience Design Perspective
• Problems in Design with Agile Development
• Mitigation Strategies
• What Agile Development Techniques Can Design
Incorporate?
• Can It Work?
• A Proposed Process
• Q&A

ABOUT YOU
• How many people here are developers?
• How many are designers?
• How many are managers/executives/other?

WHY ARE WE
OBSESSED WITH
PROCESS?

43% OF OUR SURVEY
RESPONDENTS FELT THERE
WERE INEFFICIENCIES IN
THEIR PROCESS

65% OF OUR SURVEY
RESPONDENTS FELT THEY
DID THEIR BEST WORK
AS A RESULT OF THEIR
CURRENT PROCESS

THE SURVEY
• Who did we survey?
93 designers and developers (and counting)
• Professional Groups
Refresh Boston, NEWDA, CHIFOO,
UX Professionals Group
• Participate
survey.enlightsolutions.com

SURVEY AUDIENCE BREAKDOWN
BOTH
DESIGNERS
DEVELOPERS

AGILE IN PRACTICE
HAVE NEVER
HEARD OF AGILE
NOT USING USING AGILE
AGILE

A QUICK
INTRODUCTION
TO AGILE
DEVELOPMENT

THE STATE OF SOFTWARE PRE-AGILE
• The Waterfall Method
- Drawn out product lifecycle
- Product failures without realizing any value
- Lack of stakeholder feedback and involvement

HISTORY OF AGILE
• Snowbird, Utah in 2001
• Notable names like Kent Beck, Dave Thomas, Andy
Hunt, Martin Fowler
• Led to popular frameworks like XP, SCRUM

THE AGILE MANIFESTO
We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.

THE AGILE MANIFESTO
Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value
the items on the left more.

“Clients, users,
developers, designers,
etc. ... taking little steps
together towards a
larger goal, providing
feedback, analyzing and
making sure goals are
being met at each step. ”
- RACHEL DONOVAN

THE AGILE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
Iterative - Release Early, Release Often

THE AGILE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
Iterative - Release Early, Release Often
Intense Stakeholder Involvement

THE AGILE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
Iterative - Release Early, Release Often
Intense Stakeholder Involvement
Daily Standups

THE AGILE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
Iterative - Release Early, Release Often
Intense Stakeholder Involvement
Daily Standups
User Stories

Mike
Cohn
User Stories
Applied

“It is not the strongest
of the species that
survives, nor the most
intelligent, but the one
most responsive to
change.”
- CHARLES DARWIN

USER EXPERIENCE
DESIGN

USER EXPERIENCE
Spiral-like process of:
Research
Understanding Users and Their Goals
Information Architecture
Interaction Design
Visual Design
Usability

PROBLEMS IN
DESIGN WITH AGILE
DEVELOPMENT

UNCERTAINTY

Timeboxing
Creativity

“The creative is the place
where no one else has
ever been. You have to
leave the city of your
comfort and go into
the wilderness of
your intuition.”
- ALAN ALDA

Ben
Franklin’s
Schedule

Depth of Customer Involvement

Predictability of Work Volume

Volatile
or Vague
Requirements

Maximized Performance with
Senior Talent

“If you don’t like
change, you’re going
to like irrelevance
even less.”
- GENERAL ERIC SHINSEKI

MITIGATION
STRATEGIES

Frameworks, Technologies
& Constraints

Develop an
Established,
Shared Vision
of the Users &
the Product

Rough Sketches
& Concepts

Bill
Buxton
Sketching User
Experiences

Have a Roadmap

Design Ahead

Flexible Layouts

WHAT AGILE
DEVELOPMENT
TECHNIQUES CAN
DESIGN INCORPORATE?

AGILE DEVELOPMENT TECHNIQUES
• Refactoring: How malleable is a design? Can it be altered
again and again?

AGILE DEVELOPMENT TECHNIQUES
• Incremental Construction: Can a design build on itself?

AGILE DEVELOPMENT TECHNIQUES
• Acceptance Testing: Can you get upfront criteria from
stakeholders to evaluate the success of implementation?

AGILE DEVELOPMENT TECHNIQUES
• Pair Design: This might mitigate the need for exclusively
Senior designers.

PROJECTS WELL SUITED FOR AGILE
• Primarily senior, adaptable developers and designers
• Loose upfront requirements
• Committed and available stakeholders

PROJECTS NOT WELL SUITED FOR AGILE
• High concentrations of junior resources: Senior resources
must identify batch work for the juniors to perform.
• Offshore arrangements
• Extremely strict requirements and quality standards
• Split focus teams

CAN IT WORK?

Understand what the
“Other Side” is doing.

Familiarity vs. Specialization

Mutual
Respect
for Each
Others’ Craft

HOW DO YOU
DEVELOP A
COHESIVE VISION?

Johanna
Rothman
Manage It!

A PROPOSED PROCESS

GETTING REQUIREMENTS
• Talented Creative and Engineering Resources: In the room
with the stakeholder
• Follow Brainstorming Basics
• Reflect Shared Goals Through Deliverables
- Rough Screen Sketches
- Rough User Stories tied to screens

SYNCHING UP THE DESIGN & DEV TEAMS
• Cohesive Vision
• Offset Design

Q&A

THANK YOU.

GET IN TOUCH
JON FOLLETT
jonfollett@hotknifedesign.com
twitter.com/jonfollett
DAN PICKETT
dpickett@enlightsolutions.com
twitter.com/dpickett