[Sigia-l] Agile, Scrum and UX?

Fri Mar 20 17:43:06 EDT 2015

Fantastic feedback! Thank you. Could I ask for each of you who have responded where did UX and visual design fit in with your scrum experience?

> On Mar 20, 2015, at 2:06 PM, Jonathan Baker-Bates <jonathan at bakerbates.com> wrote:
> 
> My experience would indicate that you're correct. In larger
> organisations, I think scrum is probably doomed to fail because
> technical departments usually don't have the influence needed to push
> the agenda needed for scrum to work. For example, scrum is basically
> about increasing quality, and isn't necessarily about increasing speed
> (in fact projects often start slower while risks are flushed out at
> the start). However, we found we had to present scum as a way of
> accelerating development in order to get the CEO to agree to try it.
> My unease about that deception turned out to be justified.
> 
> 
> 
>> On 20 March 2015 at 20:36, Dave Epstein <wonderpup at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I find that it can and does work (we use it at my job) but it requires the
>> entire organization to buy in - from how projects are defined and how they
>> are rolled out. That's the hard part.
>> 
>> On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 4:29 PM, Jonathan Baker-Bates <
>> jonathan at bakerbates.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Also a bit dated being from 2010, but here's my experience from the UX
>>> end of things:
>>> 
>>> http://webtorque.org/scrum-didnt-work-for-us/
>>> 
>>> I have no doubt that Scrum works. It’s just that it works for other people.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 20 March 2015 at 20:02, Adrian Howard <adrianh at quietstars.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On 20 Mar 2015, at 18:33, Tom Donehower <tdonehower at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> For those of you out there who are or have been part of a SCRUM for
>>> product development, where has UX and visual design fit in the process if
>>> at all?
>>>> 
>>>> <aside> It’s not an acronym so "Scrum" not "SCRUM". It’s a bit of a
>>> shibboleth in the agile community ;-) </aside>
>>>> 
>>>>> I’m trying to understand where these other roles and their deliverables
>>> fit in relation to a sprint from others past experiences.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Shared experiences, war stories, and insight greatly appreciated.
>>>> 
>>>> This is a few years old but still a relevant read
>>> http://www.agileproductdesign.com/blog/emerging_best_agile_ux_practice.html
>>>> 
>>>> Unfortunately it’s really one of those it-depends questions I’m afraid.
>>> My advice would change quite a bit depending on the UX folk involved, the
>>> team, how good they are at actually doing Scrum, etc.
>>>> 
>>>> For example at the more generative end (user research, interviewing,
>>> etc.) there is a strong overlap between UX and the Product Owner role in
>>> Scrum. So I’ve seen some teams work very effectively by having a UX person
>>> basically fill that role, or be a heavy support role for the actual PO.
>>>> 
>>>> On the other hand many of the most effective agile teams I’ve worked
>>> with tend to embed UX in the team. The embedded role tends towards doing a
>>> lot more facilitating of UX work by the whole team, as well as doing
>>> hands-on work.
>>>> 
>>>> If you can talk a bit more about any particular issues you’re having I
>>> might be able to give some more specific advice.
>>>> 
>>>> For further reading have a Google around "Agile UX" & "Lean UX". The
>>> Lean UX stuff grew out of folk applying UXish things in Lean Startup
>>> context — but it’s bigger than that now, being used in lots of non-startup
>>> contexts, and is a good fit for agile.
>>>> 
>>>> Book wise I’d at least glance at these:
>>>> 
>>>> * Agile User Experience Design, Diana Brown - This is great for UX folk
>>> wanting to grok agile more, and has several case studies on agile/ux teams.
>>> However, it doesn’t really dive deep into specific Agile UX practices. Good
>>> overview book. Especially for non-agile UX folk.
>>>> 
>>>> * Agile Experience Design, Lindsay Ratcliffe & Marc McNeill - Much more
>>> of a toolbox of techniques/approaches book. The last third-ish of the book
>>> is basically a list of techniques. There’s some stuff I’d niggle with in
>>> here. Especially on some of the ways they talk about Agile - but it’s kinda
>>> hair-splitting stuff if you’re just getting started ;-)
>>>> 
>>>> * User-Centered Agile Methods, Hugh Beyer — This is more of a UX-person
>>> coming to Agile book, than an Agile folk adopting UX book (if you see what
>>> I mean). My personal approach is a little bit different from Hugh’s - but
>>> there’s definitely stuff worth thinking about here. If you’re dealing with
>>> a more traditional UCD group then this would be very approachable for them.
>>>> 
>>>> * Lean UX, Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden - "The" book on Lean UX. Good
>>> introductory read on Lean UX, but can only do so much for the size of book.
>>> It’s also a bit light on some of the more generative user research
>>> approaches from my personal perspective. Still a useful read though.
>>>> 
>>>> * UX for Lean Startups, Laura Klein - I think this fills some gaps in
>>> Jeff & Josh’s Lean UX book. Especially on the user research side. I also
>>> think it’s a *much* more approachable read to non-UX folk. Something that
>>> you can give to the rest of the team.
>>>> 
>>>> * Lean Customer Development, Cindy Alvarez - Again, something very
>>> approachable to non-UX folk in language and tone. Like Jeff, Josh’s &
>>> Laura’s books it doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about integration with
>>> agile teams specifically, but the techniques fit in with agile approaches
>>> very well (indeed, agile approaches are required for this sort of UX
>>> approach to work well.). This is more relevant to PO folk.
>>>> 
>>>> Just on the topic of usability testing, the stuff in Steve Krug’s
>>> "Rocket Surgery Made Easy" fits in really nicely with agile - and very
>>> approachable for non-UX folk.
>>>> 
>>>> I’d also keep an eye on Tomer Sharon’s upcoming Lean User Research book
>>> from Rosenfeld
>>> http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/lean-user-research-product-development/
>>>> 
>>>> Outside of books I’d also take a poke at these two online communities.
>>>> 
>>>> * Balanced Team (balancedteam.org) - This community grew out of some UX
>>> and Agile folk trying to play nice together, but has a bit of a broader
>>> scope now. They do online/offline meetups, conferences, and the mailing
>>> list is as useful as respectful as this one is IMHO. I first heard about
>>> the stuff Janice Fraser et al were doing around Lean UX here, long before
>>> it was cool and sexy ;-)
>>>> 
>>>> * https://groups.yahoo.com/groups/agile-usability/info - This is AFAIK
>>> the oldest community of folk that have been poking at Agile & UX. Almost no
>>> traffic now, but has a bunch of smart folk subscribed and some gold in the
>>> archives.
>>>> 
>>>> To be honest I think plugging into the online communities around agile
>>> ux & lean ux will be more helpful to you than the books. Despite folk
>>> having been poking around this for more than ten years now, not enough of
>>> it has been written down.
>>>> 
>>>> Also, while I don’t really actively curate these anymore you may find
>>> some of the links on
>>>> 
>>>>    https://pinboard.in/u:adrianh/t:leanux
>>>>    https://pinboard.in/u:adrianh/t:agileux
>>>>    https://pinboard.in/u:adrianh/t:agile+ux
>>>> 
>>>> of interest (although the relevance to the topic may, on occasion, need
>>> filtering through my brain first ;-)
>>>> 
>>>> <biased>
>>>> Oh yes. I may put out a newsletter on the topic occasionally that might
>>> be useful. Previous issues / subscription at http://is.gd/HNz5TN
>>>> </biased>
>>>> 
>>>>> Would also be curious if you've used a scrum tool you would recommend
>>> like
>>>>> Pivotal Tracker or Axosoft OnTime.
>>>> 
>>>> Have happily used Pivotal, Jira & Trello on projects. Have also worked
>>> on projects where they’ve been a terrible hinderance. They’re just tools. I
>>> tend towards starting with post-it notes or index cards, and move to
>>> digital tools if/when necessary.
>>>> 
>>>> Hope that helps.
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> 
>>>> Adrian
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> adrianh at quietstars.com / +44 (0)7752 419080 / @adrianh / quietstars.com
>>>> (CSSTWP.com the product team certification programme you can trust! ;-)
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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> April 22-26, 2015
> Minneapolis, MN
> -----
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