In software there are two key types of work - discovery and delivery. However, that doesn't mean there are different people doing those jobs. If the whole team is responsible for product success, not just getting things built, then the whole team needs to understand and contribute to both kinds of work. Dual track agile and the UXDX model both convey the approach of design and development working together.

1. © 2019 Autodesk, Inc.
Dual-Track Agile
Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the scrum
John Schrag
Director of Experience Design | @jvschrag

2. Autodesk
Entertainment Creation Products
We make high-end 3d modelling,
animation, visual effects and rendering
software for film, television, games,
and architectural visualization
Our customers make magic.
Dina Salama
John Schrag
Director of Experience Design
former
- software developer
- experience designer
- agile coach
Twitter: @jvschrag

3. Today’s talk
How Agile ruined experience design
First Revelation
Why Agile + UX is an awesome combination
Second Revelation
Making it work for you
Third Revelation
A story in three Revelations

4. How Agile Ruined Experience Design

5. The 1990s – Life Before Agile
My team at Alias
 Waterfall development
practice
 All-unicorn UX team,
led by Lynn Miller
 Strong UX practice
 Good relationship with
developers, respected

6. 2001
Agile Arrives

7. 2002: Agile comes to Alias
 Jim Highsmith hired to provide Agile Training
 Adaptive Software Development
 Scrum Meetings
 Some aspects of Extreme Programming
 UX practice was completely absent from process

8. 2002: Adjusting
 Locus of control moved to team level
 Developers were more engaged
 Devs were driving the train!
Dev teams were super happy!

9. 2002: Adjusting
 Developers couldn’t wait for UX activities
 We couldn’t provide feedback when the development team needed it
 UX team became isolated and ineffective
User Experience Team – not so happy
Photo from
The Darjeeling Limited

10. Failing Strategy
 “I’m just going to keep doing my job the way I always have
and telling the team what they need to do.”
 “I’m just going to let them go ahead and fail. Then they’ll
come to me begging and let me do my job.”
Actual quotes from actual people

11. First Revelation:
To serve Agile,
design must become Agile.

12. Back to Principles
 “Business people and developers must
work together daily throughout the
project.”
 “The most efficient and effective method
of conveying information to and within a
development team is face-to-face
conversation.”
 “Working software is the primary
measure of progress”
 “Agile processes promote sustainable
development. The sponsors, developers,
and users should be able to maintain a
constant pace indefinitely.”
 “Continuous attention to technical
excellence and good design enhances
agility.”
 Simplicity--the art of maximizing the
amount of work not done--is essential.
From the Agile Manifesto

13. Build
Measure
Learn

14. Agile Attributes
Time-boxed
Iterative
Incremental
Collaborative
Conversational
Just-in-time

15. Agile Attributes
Time-box

16. Dual-Track Model, Explained

18. Design Track
Development Track

19. Design Track
Development Track

20. Design Track
Development Track

21. Design Track
Development Track

22. Design Track
Development Track

23. Design Track
Development Track

24. What everyone gets wrong about dual track
 Devs and Designers on same team
 Insight is shared – no “handoffs”
 Devs are involved in design
 Designers are involved in implementation
Two TRACKS, not two TEAMS

25. Agile UX Practices

26. How to adapt anything for Agile
Agile practices are:
 Time-boxed
 Iterative
 Incremental
 Collaborative
 Conversational
 Just-in-time

27. How to adapt anything for Agile
Agile practices are:
 Time-boxed
 Iterative
 Incremental
 Collaborative
 Conversational
 Just-in-time
UX practices must be adapted to have the same
qualities, while maintaining their UX value.

28. How to adapt anything for Agile
Old UX practice:
 Create a prototype
 Plan the test protocol
 Find testers
 Schedule tests
 Run tests
 Write a report detailing all found issues
Usability Testing

29. How to adapt anything for Agile
Old UX practice:
 Create a prototype
 Plan the test protocol
 Find testers
 Schedule tests
 Run tests
 Write a report detailing all found issues
Usability Testing
Agile Attributes
 Time-boxed?
 Iterative?
 Incremental?
 Collaborative?
 Conversational?
 Just-in-time?

30. How to adapt anything for Agile
Agile UX practice:
 Pre-schedule regular testing
 Maintain a pool of testers
 Test whatever is ready
 Invite team to watch
 Report key issues only
 Involve developers in solving issues
Usability Testing

31. How to adapt anything for Agile
Agile UX practice:
 Pre-schedule regular testing
 Maintain a pool of testers
 Test whatever is ready
 Invite team to watch
 Report key issues only
 Involve developers in solving issues
Usability Testing
Agile Attributes
 Time-boxed ✔
 Iterative ✔
 Incremental ✔
 Collaborative ✔
 Conversational ✔
 Just-in-time ✔

32. How to adapt anything for Agile
Old UX practice:
 Visit many customers
 Analyse all the data
 Write a report
 Create full set of artefacts (personas, use cases, journey
maps, etc.)
 Deliver to development
User Research

33. How to adapt anything for Agile
Agile UX practice:
 Talk to users regularly
 Focus on upcoming research needs
 Mix methods (e.g. usability test + card sorting + interview)
 Incrementally improve personas, maps, etc.
 Explain insights to developers continuously via storytelling
User Research
Agile Attributes
 Time-boxed ✔
 Iterative ✔
 Incremental ✔
 Collaborative ✔
 Conversational ✔
 Just-in-time ✔

34. How to adapt anything for Agile
Old UX practice:
 Design the whole UI up from in great detail (BDUF)
 Write down every detail in a long document
 Review with stakeholders in a big sign-off meeting
 Pass to developers to implement
Writing a design spec

35. How to adapt anything for Agile
Agile UX practice:
 Replace BDUF with VDUF (Vague Design Up-Front)
 Detailed design one sprint ahead only
 Pictures and callouts – just a few pages
 Talk through the design with developers
 Visit with developers while they are building it
Speccing a design
Agile Attributes
 Time-boxed ✔
 Iterative ✔
 Incremental ✔
 Collaborative ✔
 Conversational ✔
 Just-in-time ✔

36. 2003 on: Making it work

37. We started to present/publish on the topic
Miller, Lynn. “A Case Study of Customer Input for a
Successful Product”. AGILE 2005
Schrag, John. “Using Formative Usability Testing as
a Fast UX-design Tool”. UPA 2006
Sy, Desirée. “Adapting Usability Investigations for
Agile User-Centered Design”. Journal of Usability
Studies (JUS), May 2007

38. So did others
Macomber, Gary and Rauch, Thyra. “Adopting Agility”. USE 2003.
John Armitage. Are agile methods good for design? interactions, 11(1):14–23, 2004.
Stefan Blomkvist. Towards a Model for Bridging Agile Development and User-Centered Design. Springer
Netherlands, 2005.
Stephanie Chamberlain, Helen Sharp, and Neil Maiden. Towards a framework for integrating agile
development and user-centred design. In 7th International Conference on Extreme Programming and Agile
Processes in Software Engineering, XP 2006, volume 4044 of LNCS, pages 143–153, Heidelberg, Germany,
2006. Springer Verlag
Larry L. Constantine and Lucy A. D. Lockwood. Usage-centered software engineering: an agile approach to
integrating users, user interfaces, and usability into software engineering practice. In ICSE ’03, pages 746–
747. IEEE Computer Society, 2003.
P. Hodgetts. Experiences integrating sophisticated user experience design practices into agile processes. In
Agile Conference, 2005, pages 235–242, 2005.

39. What did we call it again?
Parallel Track
Staggered Sprints
Dual Track

40. We Agile

41. Our experience was not unique
“I sometimes forget how miserable my first year in
Agile development was...Eventually I adapted, and
I’ve never been more content.”
-Jeff Patton
@jeffpatton

42. We miss Agile
2006

43. We go Agile (again)
 I was asked to lead this effort (because I complained so much)
 Made mistakes, learned a lot
Autodesk M&E Division Agile Transformation

44. Second Revelation:
There is always friction at
boundary of what is Agile

45. Agile Boundary Friction
FRICTION
Development
Design
Content
Localization
Product
Management
Marketing

46. Agile Boundary Friction
With Dual-Track
FRICTION
Development
Design
Content
Localization
Product
Management
Marketing

47. 2011: Lean Startup

48. 2011 Lean Startup
Agile Product Management?
Agile Attributes
 Time-boxed ✔
 Iterative ✔
 Incremental ✔
 Collaborative ✔
 Conversational ✔
 Just-in-time ✔

49. Agile Boundary Friction
With Lean
FRICTION
Development
Design
Content
Localization
Product
Management
Marketing

50. Improvements
Interaction Design Track
Development Track
Better track names

51. Improvements
Interaction Design Track
Development Track
Better track names

52. Improvements
Discovery Track
Delivery Track
Better track names - David Hussman

53. Improvements
Marty Cagan

54. Three Tracks?
Carol J. Smith, Thyra Rauch, Hannah Moyers – AUX3 (2019)

55. Extending to deployment

56. Third Revelation:
Culture eats process
for breakfast

57. Culture Eats Process for Breakfast
 Practice grows in fertile soil
 Find champions, then clone
 Beware of Heroes
 Who rules your roost?
 Watch your incentives
 Use inclusion to maximize ROI of your diversity
 Choose your scrummasters wisely
And you never see it coming

58. Questions?
John Schrag
Twitter: @jvschrag
Build
Measure
Learn

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