Best Practices for Leveraging UX in an Agile Enterprise Development Process

Best Practices for Leveraging UX in an Agile Enterprise Development Process

HELLO! I am Angel Banks UX Designer, First Data Women Who Code Atlanta Find me on twitter: @angelmbanks

Waterfall vs. Agile Enterprise Organizations

WATERFALL » Each phase of product life cycle takes place in sequence. » All requirements gathering and design work is done before code.

Cons of Waterfall » Building software for a client who doesn’t really know what they need and what is possible. » Designers aren’t able to foresee problems from the implementation of their designs. » Changes to requirements are not easily incorporated.

AGILE » Incremental, iterative approach. » Instead of extensive planning upfront, agile allows for changing requirements over time by using cross-functional teams.

Cons of Agile » Documentation can sometimes be neglected. » Can be a problem in large organizations if not implemented correctly.

Lean UX Smashing Magazine: Lean UX » Inspired by Lean and Agile theories. » Less focus on design deliverables, more focus on design. » Minimum amount of information required to start implementation.

Lean UX Manifesto » Early customer validation over releasing products with unknown-end-user value. » Collaborative design over designing on an island. » Solving user problems over designing the next “cool” feature » Measuring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) over undefined success metrics. » Applying appropriate tools over following a rigid plan. » Nimble design over heavy wireframes, comp, or specs.

CHALLENGES

END USERS » » » » » Access to end users Chain of approval Stakeholders believe they know the user Time away from job functions Costs

STAKEHOLDERS » Stakeholder “buy-in” » Do they understand what UX is? » Bureaucracy - too many layers of management » New or replacement employees

ORGANIZATIONAL SILOS » Multi-disciplinary teams are at the heart of user-centered design however many enterprise organizations have internal teams working in silos. » Product management, developers, business analysts, project management, marketing, etc., all working on their own island. » Collaboration can face resistance.

ESTABLISHED PROCESS » Internal processes and organizational structures have been established long before UX was introduced. » Those established techniques often don’t blend with common UX workflow. » Change can be scary. Some managers are afraid to replace old models for new strategies. » Managers want to see the final product, not an MVP.

FEATURES FIRST, UX SECOND » Stakeholders want to add features for every perceived problem. » Feature creep - confusing internal requirements for persona goals. » Stakeholders interpreting persona motivations and goals instead of UX, through research.

USER RESEARCH » It can be challenging to find specialized end users to participate in research. » Some stakeholders don’t see the value of user research and think their insights are more relevant than those of the users.

DESIGN » Designers are asked to design “micro-experiences” and not given the information to consider the entire experience.

TOO MANY TOOLS . » Each team has its own preferred set of tools which can make collaboration and hand-offs with other teams difficult.

SOLUTIONS Let’s start with the first set of slides

NO MAGIC BULLET

ENGAGING STAKEHOLDERS » Conduct sessions for UX to explain to stakeholders ⋄ what UX is ⋄ what it not ⋄ the process and activities involve » UX should conduct group or one-on-one interviews to clear up any confusion about the process.

EDUCATING STAKEHOLDERS » Educate stakeholders on the importance of the enterprise user. ⋄ Pain points ⋄ Motivations ⋄ Needs ⋄ Journey

CREATE USE CASES » Storytelling - create a narrative-based use case to help stakeholders understanding the user’s journey.

REMOTE USER VISITS » Conduct remote user visits and interviews, watch them work.

FORM ALLIANCES » The larger the company, the more politics involved. » UX should include product managers and developers in the process. » Use other departments to help recruit user research participants (sales, HR/recruiting, product management).

WORK AHEAD » UX should work with product management to define requirements ahead of development in order to rapidly prototype solutions. » This allows for time to get required stakeholder approvals, and make any necessary changes, before handing off to development.

PRIORITIZE THE PAIN » With complex enterprise applications, it is impossible to solve all of the design problems at once. » Conducting qualitative (behavior) research to determine the worst pain points. » Use quantitative data to see which site areas have the most traffic. » Develop a plan to decide which issues are most pressing.

CREATE SCALABLE DESIGN SYSTEMS » Tackling complex apps screen by screen can be far too cumbersome. » Creating style guides, component libraries, and guidelines will allow developers to find some design solutions on their own.

TOOLS » Try to find tools that allow for teams to collaborate and communicate more efficiently. ⋄ UX Pin ⋄ Trello ⋄ Slack

COLLABORATION » Conduct open design sessions which includes everyone (sales, customer services, etc) where anyone can discuss problems and potential solutions. » Designers share their work in-progress with a couple of product managers and developers to get a fresh pair of eyes.