Pradeep Nayar, Director of UX & Product Design at Allstate, explains how Allstate is adopting a lean startup culture and embracing an extreme agile methodology to ‘fail fast’ and learn from their users to make relevant digital products and services.

1. How Allstate is adopting
a lean startup culture
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Pradeep Nayar
User Experience Director, Allstate

2. UserTesting’s on demand customer
insights platform enables companies
to create powerful products and
exceptional customer experiences.
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3. We Partner With Thousands Of Customers
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4. Across All Platforms, At All Stages Of Development
Watch customers interact with:
DESKTOP SMARTPHONE TABLET
WEBSITES APPS &
PROGRAMS
PROTOTYPES &
WIREFRAMES
SURVEYS PHYSICAL
PRODUCTS
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5. 8
Pradeep Nayar
User Experience Director, Allstate
Pradeep Nayar leads human-centered initiatives to drive engagement, innovation and
adoption as the User Experience Director at Allstate Insurance Company. Prior to
joining Allstate, he has worked several UX leadership roles in the B2B e-commerce and
media industry. His current passion for teaching (and learning) has him working as an
adjunct professor at DePaul University teaching the fundamentals of user centered
design to graduate students.
@designonmymind
#UTwebinar

6. HOW ALLSTATE IS ADOPTING
A LEAN STARTUP CULTURE
Pradeep Nayar
@designonmymind

7. @designonmymind
WHO AM I?
Interaction Designer
Design Tinkerer
Experience Strategist
Technology Enthusiast
16+ years working in the
media, B2B
e-commerce and
insurance industry
Passionate about how
design and technology
make peoples lives
better!

8. @designonmymind
ABOUT
ALLSTATE
Founded in 1931
70,000 employees
including exclusive
agencies
#81
Fortune 500
$35.7 Billion
Revenue in 2015
#13
Elite 100 Innovators
2016 InformationWeek

9. THE WORLD WAS CHANGING
Business Models. Design. Technology. Human Expectations.

10. Average Life Expectancy of a Fortune 500 company
50 YEARS AGO = around 75 years
TODAY = less than 15 years
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/19/peggy-noonan-on-steve-jobs-and-why-big-companies-die/#733704e93e57

12. Waterfall
SCRUM
+
XP
WE NEED TO INNOVATE FASTER

14. “I’m sick and tired of design thinking.
It’s time we started doing design doing.”
- Don Norman
http://uxpodcast.com/125-don-norman-part-1/

15. WHAT ARE WE DOING DIFFERENTLY?

16. @designonmymind
PAIRED
PROGRAMMING
Two pair of eyes are
better than one!
Code refactoring
Test Driven
Development
Continuous
Deployment
Continuous Integration
Cloud Goodness!

17. SMALL CO-LOCATED CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS
A pizza box sized team is empowered to make decisions and move quickly

18. @designonmymind
MINIMIZE
MEETINGS
Meetings take people
away from doing real
work in a day
It’s a productivity killer!
Only have meetings to
move teams forward

19. EMAIL IS DISCOURAGED
If we can’t talk in person, the next best thing is #Slack!

20. Dedicated focus on solving just one engagement at a time
ONE ENGAGEMENT AT A TIME

21. BUILDING AN MVP
Focus on customer needs
Question assumptions
Create hypotheses
Build prototypes
Test & measure results
Pivot, Persevere or Iterate
MEASURE
LEARN
BUILD

22. TEAM STRUCTURE
A Balanced Team

23. @designonmymind How Allstate is adopting a lean startup culture
BALANCED TEAM VALUES
18
Business
User Technology
http://www.balancedteam.org/
Create Trust
Share Experiences
Celebrate Failures
Welcome Diverse Teams

24. @designonmymind How Allstate is adopting a lean startup culture
BALANCED TEAM
19
Business
User Technology
+
Product Owner
Makes business decisions
related to the product
Writes & maintains backlog
Removes barriers to work
completion
Resolves issues & risks
Product Designer
Makes iterative design decisions
based on a user-centered methods
Empathizer-in-Chief
Full-stack designer who does lean
research, interaction & visual design
Helps in prioritizing feature/
functionality
Product Developer
Makes technical decisions that
influence & enable the solution
Test Driven Development (TDD)
Full-stack development support
based on the product need
Continuous development &
deployment
Anchor

25. Product Designer

26. WE ARE NOT MYTHICAL

27. @designonmymind
WE’RE
NARWHALS!
“Unicorns of the sea”

28. @designonmymind How Allstate is adopting a lean startup culture
UX COMPETENCY DEBATE
23
Vs
SPECIALIST
“Expert craftsman”
GENERALIST
“Jack of all trades”

29. Pair designers with complementary skills!
HOW WE SOLVE FOR IT?

30. @designonmymind
DESIGN
CRITIQUE
When: Once a week
Peer review of designs
by location
No judgement zone
Silent feedback
Valuable with people of
diverse skills &
backgrounds

31. @designonmymind
DESIGN
STUDIO
When: Anytime
Everyone sketches to
share different ideas
Goal-driven critique of
ideas
Many ideas generated
in a short period of time
Valuable with people of
diverse skills &
backgrounds

32. Focus on decisions instead of documentation
LEAN DOCUMENTATION

33. @designonmymind
CROSS
FUNCTIONAL
PAIRING
Build shared
understanding
Incorporate diverse
perspectives in the
product
Grow empathy for each
other
+
+
Product as designed
Feature prioritization & UAT

34. @designonmymind
PAIR
ROTATION
Happens often within a
project team
Helps to bring a fresh
pair of eyes
Pairing reduces impact
to the project
Individuals grow
experience over time
About every 6 months
we rotate individuals to
different projects
Within a team

35. Because we all have days we need to be at home
REMOTE PAIRING

36. A TYPICAL WEEK
During Execution

37. @designonmymind
ITERATION
PLANNING
When: Monday
Prioritize work for the
week
Clarify user stories
Get everyone on the
same page

38. Work in pairs and clarify questions from each other as needed
PAIR UP ALL WEEK

39. @designonmymind
LEAN RESEARCH
When: Tuesday or
Thursday
Lean validation of
hypothesis with end-users
Everyone is involved in
research including
product managers and
developers
Designers typically
facilitate discussions

40. @designonmymind
STAKEHOLDER
DEMO
When: Friday
Progress for the week is
showcased to
stakeholders outside
the team
Everyone gets to see
weekly progress

41. @designonmymind
TEAM
RETROSPECTIVE
When: Friday
Everyone contributes &
takes turn facilitating
Collective awareness of
issues
Action items identified
and assigned
Team health check

42. MAINTAIN
WORK-LIFE BALANCE
8:45 AM
12 Noon
Team Standup
Share status and plan for the day
8:30 AM
Lab Standup
After grabbing breakfast
5:30 PM
Lunch
Everyone is required to stop work
3:52 PM
Wrap Up!
Time to go home
Ping Pong break!
Time to clear the mind

43. PRODUCT LIFECYCLE

44. @designonmymind How Allstate is adopting a lean startup culture
OVERALL PROCESS
39
SCOPING DISCOVER INCEPTION EXECUTION EVALUATION
Define and gain
consensus on
the business &
user problem
Identify
Goals
Risks
Assumptions
Actors
High-Level Epics
Understand
the problem
Understand Users
User Interviews
Contextual Inquiry
Generative Interviews
Understand Business
Stakeholder Interviews
Competitive Analysis
Business Model Canvas
Understand Tech Stack
Integrations Research
FRAMING
Conceptually
solve the problem
Understand Users
User Personas
Design Insights
Scenarios
Concept Wireframes
Concept Usability Testing
Understand Business
Define & prioritize features
Understand Tech Stack
Basic App Creation
Come together
as a project
team
Clarify team roles &
responsibilities
Identify goals, risks
and anti-goals
Create persona
driven user stories
that map to epics
Prioritize the
backlog
Once the initial product
is released, it should be
continually monitored
and evaluated
Desired changes can
then be prioritized
within the backlog
Allows the team to manage velocity and
execute upon the project iteratively
Product designers should always be ahead
of development
Usability testing should be repeated on a
regular cadence throughout the iteration

45. THE JOURNEY HAS JUST BEGUN

46. @designonmymind
CONTINUOUS
LEARNING
Bootcamps
Lunch & Learns
Learn Day!

47. @designonmymind
LAB
LOCATIONS
Chicago
Northbrook
Tempe
Belfast (N. Ireland)
Derry (N. Ireland)
Beflast (Northern Ireland) Northbrook
TempeChicago

48. “The two things people hate most is change
and the way things are.”
- Anonymous

49. Special Thanks to
Erik Pedersen
Laura McGarrity
Steph Ryter
Amazing Illustrations by
Christopher Holm-Hansen
Aditya Dipankar
Artem Kovyazin
Tom Dell’Aringa
Oliviu Stoian
Dan Boysen
Scott Lewis
Lil Squid
SBet
THANK YOU.
Questions, comments & feedback
Please contact @designonmymind