[Sigia-l] How the design process fits into the agile methodology, WAS Pricing the Design Process

[Tammie Hutto Egloff]

> I don't have a strongly held position on XP but I have some observations:
> 
> 1.  Virtually all XP projects are developer driven.
> 2.  Virtually all waterfall projects of yesteryear were developer driven.
> 3.  XP wasn't created specifically to solve design problems.
> 4.  Developers are not designers.

I have to admit, when my last company implemented XP, it was very developer
driven. I don't know if that's common among that specific agile "flavor"...
it's just my experience.

However, XP isn't the only Agile process. At my current company, we're using a
SCRUM agile process for several projects. While development has a lot of say
about what can be built in the sprint/iteration, the design comes from product
and our User Centered Design group. We make sure the designs are completed
before development starts to work on the functionality. Which means, the
designs/features/etc are not developer driven and, therefore, they are not the
designers. (Note, this doesn't mean that development doesn't have the freedom
to offer design suggestions if they have them. It does mean they have a design
created by designers that they implement.)

Tammie