The document discusses IBM's approach to design thinking and lean UX. It outlines key elements of IBM Design Thinking including maintaining close relationships with clients/users, focusing teams around "Release Hills", conducting frequent "Playbacks" to demo progress to users, collaborating through wiki-based documents, and measuring outcomes with metrics. The approach aims to scale design to consistently deliver great user experiences.

1. Staying on Target with
IBM Design Thinking & Lean UX
Ariadna Font Llitjós, PhD
UX Lead and Development Manager
@quicola #designthinking #leanux @ibmdesign
InfoSphere Data Explorer, Big Data

2. Acquisition
June 2012 (TOB - January 2013)
Vivisimo
Company size 120
Engineering size 30
Cross-functional team size 4
Enterprise search
InfoSphere Data Explorer :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
IBM, Big Data
430,000
40+
10
Big Data exploration &
visualization
2

3. Focused vision and target
vs.
Overstimulating environment
& developing market
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6. IBM Design Thinking
to the rescue
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7. “Designers [...] don't try to search for a solution until they
have determined the real problem, and even then,
instead of solving that problem, they stop to consider a
wide range of potential solutions.
Only then will they finally converge upon their proposal.
This process is called ‘design thinking.’”
— Don Norman
“Rethinking Design Thinking” Core77, 19 March, 2013
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8. “Designers [...] don't try to search for a solution until they
have determined the real problem, and even then,
instead of solving that problem, they stop to consider a
wide range of potential solutions.
Only then will they finally converge upon their proposal.
This process is called ‘design thinking.’”
— Don Norman
“Rethinking Design Thinking” Core77, 19 March, 2013
InfoSphere Data Explorer :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
8

9. “Designers [...] don't try to search for a solution until they
have determined the real problem, and even then,
instead of solving that problem, they stop to consider a
wide range of potential solutions.
Only then will they finally converge upon their proposal.
This process is called ‘design thinking.’”
— Don Norman
“Rethinking Design Thinking” Core77, 19 March, 2013
InfoSphere Data Explorer :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
9

10. “Designers [...] don't try to search for a solution until they
have determined the real problem, and even then,
instead of solving that problem, they stop to consider a
wide range of potential solutions.
Only then will they finally converge upon their proposal.
This process is called ‘design thinking.’”
— Don Norman
“Rethinking Design Thinking” Core77, 19 March, 2013
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11. IBM Design Thinking is about
creating great experiences for our users.
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12. This is not a user experience
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13. This is a user experience

14. PRODUCT
UX
SERVER
UI
DATA CENTER
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15. PRODUCT
PRODUCT
UX
UX
SERVER
UI
DATA CENTER
SERVER
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UI
DATA CENTER
15

16. “Good design is good business.”
— Thomas Watson Jr.
Chief Executive Officer, 1973
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17. IBM Design Thinking: Scaling great design
Key building blocks for consistently great design outcomes
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18. IBM Design Thinking: Scaling great design
Key building blocks for consistently great design outcomes
Sponsor Clients/Users
Continuous engagement with people
in target roles and industry domains
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19. IBM Design Thinking: Scaling great design
Key building blocks for consistently great design outcomes
Sponsor Clients/Users
Continuous engagement with people
in target roles and industry domains
Release Hills
Focused investment,
empowered teams
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20. 3 Release Hills focus and empower teams
Less micro-management and more iteration
A Release Hill captures the Commander’s intent
“a framework for freedom to act”
Example of a Release Hill:
“A business user should be able to
create and start using a process
application in less than 60 seconds”
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21. IBM Design Thinking: Scaling great design
Key building blocks for consistently great design outcomes
Sponsor Clients/Users
Continuous engagement with people
in target roles and industry domains
Release Hills
Focused investment,
empowered teams
InfoSphere Data Explorer :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
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22. IBM Design Thinking: Scaling great design
Key building blocks for consistently great design outcomes
Sponsor Clients/Users
Continuous engagement with people
in target roles and industry domains
Playbacks
Relentless focus on user value and experience
throughout the development process
• Story-driven milestones led by users
• Playback Zero: Align on product vision before coding
• Interim Playbacks: Demo stories in executable code
Release Hills
Focused investment,
empowered teams
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23. Demo features & functionality
vs.
Demo experience as a narrative
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24. Quotes from Playback 1
“I’d love to have you present this to the sales teams the same way,
it tells the entire story...”
— Manuel Corniel, WW Sales Exec
Big Data, Data explorer
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25. Quotes from Playback 1
“To me it’s like nirvana, you’re getting a nonmediated demo (directly from the user).”
— Charlie Hill, CTO Design
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26. IBM Design Thinking: Scaling great design
Key building blocks for consistently great design outcomes
Sponsor Clients/Users
Continuous engagement with people
in target roles and industry domains
Playbacks
Relentless focus on user value and experience
throughout the development process
• Story-driven milestones led by users
• Playback Zero: Align on product vision before coding
• Interim Playbacks: Demo stories in executable code
Release Hills
Focused investment,
empowered teams
InfoSphere Data Explorer :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
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27. IBM Design Thinking: Scaling great design
Key building blocks for consistently great design outcomes
Sponsor Clients/Users
Continuous engagement with people
in target roles and industry domains
Playbacks
Relentless focus on user value and experience
throughout the development process
• Story-driven milestones led by users
• Playback Zero: Align on product vision before coding
• Interim Playbacks: Demo stories in executable code
Release Hills
Focused investment,
empowered teams
Wiki-based Release Documents
Efficient cross-functional collaboration
around peer-reviewed artifacts
Product
Management
InfoSphere Data Explorer :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
Engineering
Design
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28. personas
IBM Designcamp :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
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29. personas
user stories & interactions
IBM Designcamp :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
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30. personas
user stories & interactions
sketches
IBM Designcamp :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
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31. personas
user stories & interactions
visual
prototypes
IBM Designcamp :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
sketches
24

32. personas
user stories & interactions
field testing
visual
prototypes
IBM Designcamp :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
sketches
24

33. personas
user stories & interactions
release
blueprint
field testing
visual
prototypes
IBM Designcamp :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
sketches
24

34. IBM Design Thinking: Scaling great design
Key building blocks for consistently great design outcomes
Sponsor Clients/Users
Continuous engagement with people
in target roles and industry domains
Playbacks
Relentless focus on user value and experience
throughout the development process
• Story-driven milestones led by users
• Playback Zero: Align on product vision before coding
• Interim Playbacks: Demo stories in executable code
Release Hills
Focused investment,
empowered teams
Wiki-based Release Documents
Efficient cross-functional collaboration
around peer-reviewed artifacts
Product
Management
InfoSphere Data Explorer :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
Engineering
Design
25

35. IBM Design Thinking: Scaling great design
Key building blocks for consistently great design outcomes
Sponsor Clients/Users
Continuous engagement with people
in target roles and industry domains
Playbacks
Relentless focus on user value and experience
throughout the development process
• Story-driven milestones led by users
• Playback Zero: Align on product vision before coding
• Interim Playbacks: Demo stories in executable code
Release Hills
Focused investment,
empowered teams
Wiki-based Release Documents
Efficient cross-functional collaboration
around peer-reviewed artifacts
IBM Design
Thinking
Metrics
Visibility into
objective
operational data
Organization
data
Skills ratios
1:9
Design team skills data
Release
Blueprint URL
Release Hills
Lead Users
Product
Management
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Engineering
Design
Dependencies
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36. Where were we?
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39. What else changed?
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40. Colocated team
vs.
Distributed team
(2/10 remote devs - still more colocated than most IBM teams)
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41. Non-dedicated design resources
vs.
Dedicated design resources
(2 UX designers, 2 front-end devs / 3 app devs, 3 backend devs)
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42. Access to end users
vs.
Sponsor clients and users
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43. Dev
UX
PM
vs.
Dev UX PM
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44. Lean UX Principles
• Design Thinking
• User-centric design and development
• Cross-functional team
• Maximize learning
• Just-in-time (minimize waste)
• Validate and iterate
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45. Things that remained the same
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46. Agile & Lean practices for over 5 years
• startup culture
• XP practices (continuous integration, peer reviews, unit tests, pair
programming, ...)
• design studios (collaborative design workshops)
• Kanban
• stories
• daily standups
• demos
• retrospectives
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47. Design and development flow
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48. 1. Brainstorm and scope as a team
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49. 2. Workflow and creating epics
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50. 3. Breaking epics down to stories that can be designed / implemented
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51. 4. Design, validate, implement, polish design
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52. 5. One day in the Pittsburgh Big Data lab...
Designers and
developers at work
Team daily standup
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53. 6. Designer shares design and gets feedback from Dev
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54. 7. Dev works on implementing the design
ARIADNA FONT | @QUICOLA @IBMDESIGN @LEANUX

55. 8. Dev proudly shows the implementation with the final design to designer
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56. Key aspects
One team with shared core values
Daily high-bandwidth communication
Iterate - don’t let perfection be the enemy of good
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57. What about outcomes?
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58. Before...
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59. Now
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60. Now
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61. Now
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62. InfoSphere Data Explorer :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
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63. InfoSphere Data Explorer :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
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64. InfoSphere Data Explorer :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
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66. InfoSphere Data Explorer :: IBM Confidential :: ©2013 IBM Corporation
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67. Responsive design (mobile friendly)
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68. Responsive design (mobile friendly)
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69. InfoSphere Data Explorer 9.0
1st Signature Product released!
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70. Can’t dictate
great outcomes

71. PROCESS

72. PROCESS
Not a new way of acting, a new way of thinking

73. Can prepare for
great outcomes

74. June 2012
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75. We managed to bring IBM along and
leverage IBM’s channels
October 2013
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76. IBM Design Thinking
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77. IBM Design Thinking
&
Lean UX
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78. Thanks!
@quicola #designthinking #leanux @ibmdesign
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79. References
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80. Engineering and coding practices
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