Agile and UX, July 8 - Scrum Club, Los Angeles, CA

Scrum and User Experience Design: Bringing Great Design into the Agile Process
Patrick Neeman, Usability Counts
Mike Vincent, MVA Software

Scrum
A process for managing complex projects.
Stay small: Focus on smaller, measurable increments
Staying in communication: Short meetings to encourage more short meetings between fewer team members
Stay transparent:Inspection is dependent on transparency.

Scrum…
Works Well
Existing products
Smaller teams
Projects with no existing methodology
Projects with existing technology but a failed approach
Dedicated teams
Jack of all trade team members
Doesn’t Work So Well
Undefined, new products
Larger teams and projects
Teams with members on several projects
Without a strong team in place
Specialists

Scrum Sprint Process
Daily: Talk about yesterday, today, tomorrow(15 minutes)
Take longer conversations offline
Retrospective: Change the process to make it better(1 hour)
Don’t change Product Backlog (list of features) once sprint has started
Week 1
Week 2
Daily Meeting
Daily Meeting
Daily Meeting
Daily Meeting
Daily Meeting
Daily Meeting
Daily Meeting
Daily Meeting
Daily Meeting
Daily Meeting
Retrospective Meeting
Sprint 1
Sprint 2
Sprint 3
Sprint 4
Sprint 5

Product Owner
Defines the features of the product
Agency: Client is Product Owner
Company: Product Manager/UX Lead is Product Owner
Manages project features and releases to optimize return on investment (ROI)
Inspects increment and makes adaptations to project after end of sprints
Can change features and priority every X days, but not in the middle of a Sprint

Scrum Master
Ensures that the team is fully functional, productive and improves quality
Enables close cooperation across all roles and functions and removes barriers
Shields the team from external interferences
Ensures that the process is followed
Teaches Product Owner and Team how to fulfill their roles
Not a dedicated role, but it’s nice if this it the UX team member

Roles and Responsibilities
Team
Cross-functional, seven plus/minus two members
Example: 1 UX Designer, 3 Developers, 2 QA
Self organizing
Manages itself, its work and its process
Commits to what it feels it can accomplish
Limit team to 45 hour work weeks for measurable results
Collaborates with Product Owner to optimize value
Demos work results to the Product Owner as much as possible
Hallway usability testing

Definition of Done

Team together with product owner defines what “done” means.
Done defines the current technical capability of the team.
Typically, Done should include everything needed before deployment.
Done may be a stub page or a process that requires human intervention.
Not done backlog items should be pushed to the next Sprint.

How to measure Done
Development team must be able to produce a completely “done” piece every Sprint
Product Owner must inspect and adapt to optimize ROI every Sprint
“Undone” work must be identified
WaterfallDone at end of project
Development Process
Done
Agile/ScrumDone at end every iteration
Done
Done
Done
Done
Done

Documentation Plan
Just enough – it’s what you have to say and what you don’t have to say
Overall style guide
High level use cases / user stories
Light wireframes, 3 by 5 cards, hand written notes
Don’t update what you don’t need
Detailed test plans (definition of done)
Pass / Fail
The only deliverable that counts is the final product

Corporate Espionage Sprint Plan
Where User Experience / QA fits in
Work one sprint ahead
Wireframes
Test Plans
Test driven development
Unit tests defined by requirements
Test plans are written to define completing requirements
Schedule a sprint or two for user research

Product Backlog
User Research – Sprint 1 UX
Scoring Architecture – Sprint 2
Claim Card – Sprint 2 UX
Play Card – Sprint 2 UX
Sign In – Sprint 2 UX
Sign Up – Sprint 3 UX
Pick Card – Sprint 4 UX
Score Card – Sprint 4 UX

Example Product Development
Team agreed to…
Two week sprints
Daily 15 minute meetings
Retrospective, no more than one hour, talk about process
One sprint on user research
Everyone gives estimates, fill 80 percent of their schedule (8 of 10 days)
Developers need breathing room
UX’ers need drinking, research time
With further sprints, estimates will become more refined

Example Product Development

Sprint Backlog 1
Developers
Set up development environment
Set up testing environment
User Experience / QA
User Research
What is the game
Who is the target audience
Plan with product owner the first few sprints
Plan a design pattern
Claim Card

Sprint Backlog 2
Developers
Scoring Architecture
Build Of Pages/Stubs
Claim Card
High level use cases
High level site map -- Establish Pages/Stubs
Play Card

Sprint Backlog 3
Developers
Create Pages/Stubs
Play Card
Pick Card
Score Card
A/B Testing of Claim Card

Sprint Backlog 4
Developers
Play Card
Score Card
User Experience
Claim Card Refactor

Retrospective
What did we do well
What didn’t we do well
Is our Product Owner Happy?
Produce working fully tested software
Did not produce unnecessary stuff
Metrics
Look at key reports

Example Burndown Charts