[Sigia-l] Agile, Scrum and UX?
Jonathan Baker-Bates
jonathan at bakerbates.com
Fri Mar 20 18:34:35 EDT 2015
We started by having UX and VD outside scrum in a "resource pool"
because the devs went into scrum first. UX then allocated people to be
part of each scrum team in "orthodox" scrum style. They all then
worked in 2 or 3-week sprints, depending on which team they were in.
Sometimes the devs did some UX work, but mostly didn't have the time
as they were too busy working on stories the UX guys had worked up in
previous sprints. The product owners (together with UX) had the
capacity to generate complex stories that maxed out their developers
very easily. Our UX guys were also not qualified to write production
code of any kind, so there was no question of roles blurring there
either.
BTW we also ditched most of the exploratory customer research we used
to do, and just went for gut feeling in the hope we could "tack" later
on once things shipped and we could put working systems in front of
users. I'd say that while that might have worked in theory, in
practice we found it was scuppered by the extreme reluctance of the
devs to throw away production code early on in the name of agility.
I've also subsequently encountered this in other places (I currently
work in "programmer anarchy" - Google will explain). While devs are
fine with refactoring code on their own terms, it's much harder to
convince them to refactor the UX because it might well involved very
large technical changes. This may be a fundamental difference between
the UX and development mindsets though. Not sure.
While I'm on the subject of UX and VD in scrum, there is also an issue
around the interpretation of "minimum viable product" when sizing
stories. Very often, I've seen MVP being used as a cover for crappy
UX. When this goes into production, it is quite rightly seen as such
by stakeholders and becomes something that de-motivates, angers and
frustrates many people. Perhaps that frustration is in fact necessary
in the name of agility. If done well it means you won't waste time on
the wrong things. But we just couldn't stomach the emotional reality
of it.
I should also point out that our "post-scrum" experience was rather
better. The devs went into a form of scrumban, while UX and VD went
into full kanban, albeit "throwing it over the wall" to the devs at
the end. Kanban was much, much better for us. No sprints, estimation
or ceremonies, we just concentrated on "waste". It was simple, and we
could keep to the quality we wanted without slowing down. But I guess
that's a story for another time.
On 20 March 2015 at 21:43, Thomas Donehower <tdonehower at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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