How to align Product and UX Design with Agile Development…
Don’t force UX experts into following the existing project plan for deliverables. Create your plan only when UX have reached a valid outcome. Based on that outcome prepare your agile development plan.
Every day 100s of online job adverts appear for UX experts. Alongside the usual job description, there is a new trend starting to creep in recently, that “demands” UX to work within an Agile development environment.
I am in the UX field for almost 15 years working with enough organizations to prove this ‘demand’ unthoughtful. I am not sure who is actually responsible for this requirement, Product Owner, HR, Project Manager, or perhaps the Development team. But one thing is confirmed that whoever wants a UX expert to follow the Agile sprints and deliver according to the agile framework from day one, haven’t got a clue what is UX and how it works.
I am not implying that UX experts should stop working with Agile development completely, but knowing where UX connects with Agile development will make UX, Devs and stakeholders life a lot easier and lead to a great product.
Scenario
This is the most common scenario I have come across.
The business hired a UX expert to improve their current product UX. The existing development team is already working agile. The project plan has factored all the deliverables within 2 weeks of sprints.
Problems
There are 4 fundamental issues with this scenario:
1- Business does not know the difference between UX and UI.
The business actually wanted a UI designer, but since they (like many others) did not know the difference, they hired the wrong expert for the job.
2- Business is too late to hire a UX expert.
Let’s assume businesses understand the difference between UX and UI. But they were too late to hire one. You cannot hire UX experts and push them into deliverables.
3- UX isn’t about deliverables.
This is totally wrong assumption that UX is all about deliverables. You cannot ask UX expert “We need a wireframe for ABC or information architecture for XYZ within a current sprint or next sprint. UX is about understanding the problem, finding the solution, validating it with the users and only then converting it into deliverables.
4- User Stories have been written already.
The business has got the user stories written already, without UX experts’ involvement. The biggest mistake businesses do is to write user stories from a business perspective and not from the users’ perspective.
By doing this, you are asking a UX experts to work with one hand tied behind their back!
Solution
The solution is very simple, don’t force UX experts into following the existing project plan for deliverables. Create your plan only when UX have reached a valid outcome. Based on that outcome prepare your agile development plan.
Here is my easy and proven solution if you really want to produce great products.
