1. Agile UX Runway
Natalie Warnert - Agile Coach
www.nataliewarnert.com
@nataliewarnert

2. WHAT IS UX?
How a person interacts with a system
● Flow
● Perception
● Accessibility
● Ease of use
● Understanding

3. ROLES ON UX TEAM
● User Researchers
● Information Architects
● Visual Designers
● CSS Developers
● Accessibility

4. CENTRALIZED VS. DECENTRALIZED UX TEAM
Centralized
● One UX team for an organization or
department
● High role specialization
● Resource distribution between projects –
shared services model
● “Consulting”
● Can act as own Agile team
Decentralized
● One UX consultant on every Agile team (or
project)
● Jack of all trades – less specialization
● More availability (?)
● Is involved in all team activities
-----------------------------------------------------------
● Hybrid models

5. WHY IS IT HARD FOR UX AND AGILE TO PLAY
NICELY?
● UX needs to be integrated at all levels of planning and development
● It’s a balance between delayed feedback and big design up front (BDUF)
● Teams must adhere to fixed timelines and varying scope, while managing desire to change and desire
to design the best thing
● UX has to work closely with both dev and product and make compromises between the two

6. UX’S PLACE IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
PORTFOLIO LEVEL
● Perform user research activities
● Development of user personas and use cases
● Development of business case for products
● Map high-level system interactions (BDUF)
● Work ahead on initial feature deliverables and design ideas for first iterations (as
infrastructure is getting set up)

7. UX’S PLACE IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
CONTINUED INVOLVEMENT AT PROGRAM/TEAM LEVEL
● Prioritize and plans work: UX as Scrum/Agile team
● Work with Product Owner to make wireframes, designs, and user flows to help:
○ Drive conversations and direction
○ Write requirements, stories and tasks, acceptance criteria
○ Adhere to DoD and DoR criteria
● Confer with developers to find solution options
● Style pages appropriately & accessibly (CSS)
This leads to higher quality in the application and more customizable design and less re-work

8. How can all work be completed in one
iteration…?
It shouldn’t be…

9. UX RUNWAY

10. UX RUNWAY - PULLING WORK AND QUALITY
FORWARD IN THE PROCESS

11. UX RUNWAY – PULLING WORK AND QUALITY FORWARD
IN THE PROCESS

12. UX RUNWAY
● Iterating ahead but on same cadence
● Just in time (JIT) and set-based design
○ “Just enough” detail provided for development team to start work
○ Multiple options to choose, validate and refine as we gain more understanding– doesn’t limit end goal
○ 80-90% completion goal for UX deliverables at “hand off”
● Continuous collaboration and feedback from business and development to get best solution in allotted
time
● Planned room for UX changes and integration
○ ~10-25% capacity

14. POINT-BASED VS. SET-BASED DESIGN
Point-based design:
● Committing to detailed specifics at an early point in the development/design process
● More empirical data will become available as the development proceeds
● Discovery that design won’t work is too late in the process – opportunity cost is higher and it costs more to fix
Set-based design
● Maintain multiple, higher-level, requirement and design options for longer (delay decision making to one
option)
● Use empirical data to focus on final design options
● This helps to assume variability and preserve options
● “Just enough” detail to move forward, not too much to lock into a hasty decision that will limit and bind us later
http://scaledagileframework.com/set-based-design/

16. IT’S A BALANCE
● Maintaining multiple options while not putting too much detail into each (save the detail for JIT)
● Frequent and early validation through prototyping, modeling, simulation
● Specify interfaces and requirements (e.g. performance) – not exactly how an element achieves its results
● Frequent integration and review points
● Adaptive planning
http://scaledagileframework.com/set-based-design/
Building
the right
thing
Building
the thing
right
Building
it fast

17. USER RESEARCH (FEATURES/EPICS)
● Problem focused design
● Get out of the building
● Rapid prototyping
● Minimum Viable Product
● Rapid feedback cycles

18. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE AND VISUAL DESIGN
(EPICS/STORIES)
● Problem focused design
● Integration of user research up front
● Set based design to just in time design
● Design standards
● Consistent interactions and integrations
● 10 – 25% overlap capacity – rework if necessary, answer questions, address issues
● Constant communication and collaboration with Agile team

19. FRONT-END UI/CSS/ACCESSIBILITY (STORIES/TASKS)
● Same cadence as development/it is development
● Centralized ownership of the stylesheets
● Branding standards
● Coding accessibly
● Overseers of full circle quality
● Raising up impediments and dependencies when opportunity cost is still relatively low
● Coding to accommodate changing requirements, consistency, and scalability

20.  Backlog grooming – dependencies are identified
 UX backlog is developed, sized, and planned
 Working sessions with Product Owners and teams
 Frequent reviews and feedback for collaboration
 Demos with development teams
 Determine if designs are not feasible
 “Finished” UX work items help to drive work, collaboration, identify gaps, and INCREASE QUALITY
without limiting options
HOW DOES IT ACTUALLY WORK?

21.  Days 1-5: The designs
 Day 5: The rough drafts
 Days 5-7: The final touches and directionary decisions (set-based design decisions)
 Day 7: “Hand-off” to development
 Day 7-10: Last chance for adjustments during sprint
 Days 10+ (next Iteration): Start over and 10-25% JIT reactionary design capacity
UX RUNWAY: ITERATION SCHEDULE (10 DAY) FOR
PRODUCT ENHANCEMENT

22.  Higher quality finished product
 Fewer “fire drills”
 Less development and UX re-work - more iteration
 Faster delivery time with higher visibility to all
 More design flexibility/options without forced and disruptive adjustment
 Product consistency
BENEFITS OF UX RUNWAY

23. Books/Resources
 Lean UX
 The design of everyday things
 Don't make me think
 Scaled Agile - Set Based Design
RESOURCES
Natalie's Work
● UX Runway Blog
● Incorporating Agile UX Article -Methods and
Tools
● UX Runway in Practice (Sprinting)
● Def of Ready with Dependent Teams (e.g. UX)
● UX and BA - Lviv, Ukraine
● Video of Lviv, Ukraine
● UX Runway at Agile2014
● UX Runway Podcast
● UX Runway Webinar XBOSoft