Agile is missing something. Stories and epics are focused on self-contained iterations but its not always clear how everything is supposed to fit together - what does the final user experience look and feel like? This gap in Agile is significant because the final user experience is how the customer determines value - is it efficient, effective, and satisfactory? Consider filling the gap with scenarios. Scenarios blend well with Agile by allowing the generation of iteration-level user stories but also make it very clear what is the desired user experience and value proposition. This session describes how UX professionals not only have the expertise but are uniquely positioned to develop and drive these scenarios, in turn making themselves an essential part of the Agile process.
- Intro to ourselves, lend credibility (Brian first) - Agile creds, years practicing agile, development organization - Bring up a real conversation we had with someone at the conference, related to our topic (“How do you figure out what to build? What are some of the problems you experience?”) -
BRIAN - In pairs, answer this question - Give you 2 minutes, ready set go - Let it go until the audience settles down, or about 2 minutes
BRIAN - Who has some ideas to share of why that happened to you? - We have time for (one, a couple) more – who else has ideas to share?
BRIAN - Agile and no other development methodology is immune to this problem of ‘misunderstanding the user experience’. Hugh Beyer, author and speaker, advocates user-centered agile methodology but working within the scope of Agile. Reference quote – there is no upstream in Agile. Instead need to understand the stream we are in Example from picture: Given req’s to build things to help the salmon get up stream (e.g. fish ladders). Missing the context and user experience of why the salmon actually need to get upstream.
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KALEB - Look at what the blind scientists are saying as they inspect the various visible features of this elephant. - Take 30 seconds to look at the comic and ask yourself what you would do to get everyone to start thinking “elephant”. - Who has an idea they'd like to share. - Now, imagine the elephant is the total user experience in your product stemming from multiple stories and epics in your backlog across maybe a single or multiple releases. Now think about these scientists as being your developers, product management, sales and marketing folks, etc. looking at your stories and trying to figure out what the intended total user experience is. - Chances are they're going to arrive at the same sorts of conclusions these blind scientists did. - Misunderstanding is one of the most common problems with an agile backlog, and can cause rippling effects throughout the software development process.
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KALEB - Take 15-20 seconds to ask the question - Who would like to share?