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TRANSCRIPT
Introducing Agile
2IXDA Chicago 04.25.18
Taking a Step Back
Finding Our Groove
ExpandingOur Horizons
OUR JOURNEY
IXDA CHICAGO 04.25.18
What’s Next?
An idea that started as a sprint quickly grew into a design project. Finally we were at the point where the client was ready to bring this idea to life.
We had to decide if we were.
4IXDA CHICAGO 04.25.18
AGILE, OF COURSE!
This seemed like the obvious and only solution as we expanded our internal development practice. Agile is literally a development philosophy built on iteratively delivering value to users and we were a design firm centered around iterative design.
So we went with it.
5IXDA CHICAGO 04.25.18
Resourcing is HardFinding great people and keeping them in between contracts is tough.
Contract CadencesWe’re negotiating for months at a time and review processes can hold up work.
As we learned more, we quickly started to see why development at a design firm might have to be a little different than the typical in-house development team or dev-shop.
Inertia to ChangeOur processes, timelines, templates and deliverables all needed to change.
PROBLEMS WITH AGILE
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FULL SPEED AHEAD
For Phase 1, were stuck in Wagile world since we had already completed so much design work previously.
At the end of the phase we had a accomplished our objective: a beta app.
But, we made a lot of design changes on the fly and they hadn’t been validated.
7IXDA CHICAGO 04.25.18
NEW CONTRACT, NEW APPROACH
So, time for the next phase rolled around and we decided we needed to reevaluate our process.
We wanted to take a step back, conduct some research and ensure we were building a holistic experience.
We just needed to figure out how to do that while still pushing forward on new features & functionality.
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Looking at the work ahead we saw three distinct tracks of work. So, we decided we would do all three concurrently.
Refinement Exploration DevelopmentWe’ll evaluate what’s there, iterating to continually improve.
We’ll clarify paths forward & build together.
We’ll explore and ideate on new directions.
TRIPLE TRACK
10IXDA CHICAGO 04.25.18
IT WAS… A LOT
Design and research split time across two different tracks of work while trying to support ongoing dev requests.
Our developers struggled to keep up-to-date with exploration and refinement tracks. This led to them not understanding the bigger vision.
On top of all that, there was a lot of re-work of existing features. This made it seem like we weren’t making enough progress.
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PROS
12
CONS
Included User Evaluation
Explored & Built New, Tested Features
Designing within Development Constraints
Felt Like Separate Teams
Refinement & Exploration Overlap
Difficult to Prioritize Designer Time
IXDA CHICAGO 04.25.18
DUAL TRACK AGILE
15
Release Goals
Discovery
Discovery
Delivery
Delivery
Delivery
Delivery
Discovery
Product Backlog Sprint Backlog
Discovery
Delivery
Delivery
Shippable Code!
Sprint PlanningSprint Demo
Sprint Retrospective
Discovery stories
Delivery stories
75% Designer’s time25% Developer’s time
25% Designer’s time75% Developer’s time
IXDA CHICAGO 04.25.18
Prioritize story
Develop hypothesis
Develop design recommendations
Evaluate designs with users
Draft discovery epic / story Create designs
Hypothesis supported
Refine story & designs
Backlog
Later Now
Added to a future development
sprint
No Yes
Backlog freezer
Create acceptance
criteria
Converted to a development
story
AGILE DISCOVERY PROCESS
PLANNING & PRIORITIZATION PREP & DELIVERYDESIGN & ITERATION
We developed a research cadence to push features forward while still making time to evaluate the overall experience.
RESEARCH CADENCE
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ALWAYS EXPLORING
We’re curious and are continuously looking for ways to improve. The lesson we’ve learned is to carefully consider why you are doing things a certain way.
New processes are likely to have risks and costs associated. You might lose productivity or create unexpected pain points.
But, you might just end up with something way better than you expected.
18IXDA CHICAGO 04.25.18
READYING FOR LAUNCH
As EcoCRED grows and evolves, the capabilities needed are evolving as well.
Right now we are working on a communication strategy, storytelling, roll out coordination, planning post-launch research, and much more.
20IXDA CHICAGO 04.25.18
FORWARD MOMENTUM
Big Idea
21
Prototyping Product Development
Branded Content
Email Campaign
Communication Strategy
SocialMedia
AnalyticsDashboard
IXDA CHICAGO 04.25.18
Yesterday
Today
THANK YOU
22
Kate FitzgibbonDirector, Design Research
Brian LichliterSenior Experience Designer