The Dual-Track Agile UX Process at Dell EMC

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Dual Track Agile for Enterprise Creative TeamsThe long night of disruption and impossible deadlines.

Ian Armstrong Senior UX Designer

Dell EMC Dell Digital Studio

Let’s get aligned

UI is an ArtifactDesign is a System

So what is Agile?UX is a Process

So let’s talk about Agile

2weeks

24hours

Product BacklogPrioritized by business value

Sprint BacklogEstimated, Ready

Sprint

Iterative LoopBuild, Test, Modify

The Promise The Reality

Image Credit: Google Ventures

The Promise

Teams receive a prioritized backlog of user stories that break the production process into manageable chunks.

The chunks are estimated and producing them exposes team velocity. Accurate completion dates an be inferred.

The burndown chart closes in on zero as the team works through a known backlog.

Design teams have long and frustrating Sprint planning meetings because backlog items are poorly defined.

They have slow velocity as well as poor design because details are still being worked out during the Sprint.

The amount of waste and rework is very high because backlog items have not been validated.

The Reality

Gestalt:a structure, arrangement, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts.

Stakeholder:A stakeholder is anyone who can derail the train.

#designerproblemsThe struggle is real

Pure UX is Waterfall

Know the UserThrives onPreparation

Execute theDesignKnow the Business

Oh look, it’s a cone of uncertainty

So yes there are two tracks to agile in a creative unit

The Delivery TrackThere are twoAgile tracks

Aligning DeliveryWith Human

Centered DesignThe Ideation Track

Dual Track AgileThe Purist’s Approach

The Lenses of Human Centered Design

Design and Development work together with stakeholders to ensure that solutions meet three criteria:

1. DesirableUsers find the design both useful and more effective than their current options.

2. ViableThe company is able to sustain the demands of the design in terms of resource output and ongoing financial commitments.

3. FeasibleThe solution is designed in a way that is technically possible given the resource and time constraints involved.

The Discovery Track

The Discovery track is all about quickly generating validated product backlog items.

Research sprints focus on discovering a set of user needs and articulating them as problem statements.

Design sprints focus on creating a working prototype from research sprint insights.

The Delivery track is all about generating releasable prototypes.

Interaction designers, visual designers, copywriters, and UX Engineers refine prototypes into production-ready assets.

User testing focuses on optimizing designs rather than validating backlog disruptive ideas.

The Delivery Track

The Research Sprint (4 days)

Interpret and test initial stakeholder requirements using a “quick win” prototype

Discover what we don’t yet know about the user’s needs and process

Validate a high concept and unpack it for focused creative work

Move the project from actionable insight to a working prototype through rapid ideation

Practice team ideation and deep discussion of ideas during the sketch & decide days

Build and test a clickable prototype as a proof-of concept for delivery

The Design Sprint (5 days)

The Research SprintArticulate the problem and ensure the desirability and utility of the opportunity statement.

The Research Sprint

• A sprint model pioneered by Google Ventures

• Business needs are expressed by the product owner as a high level product proposal but there are many unknowns.

• The research sprint answers a lot of important questions about the proposed idea:– Is there a market for this product?– Will the product help people solve their problems?– What should we build?– Do people understand this product?– Will people find the product useful?– Is the product we are building usable?

Research Sprint: The Components1. A set of questions and assumptions

2. Intentional and selective recruiting

3. A realistic prototype you can test. †

4. Five one-on-one interviews combining broad discovery questions with task-based evaluation of a prototype or current product

5. Real-time summarization of findings

† This is based purely on the stakeholder problem statements / proposals and does not have to be the result of a design sprint.

Research Sprint: The Four Day Plan

• Day One: Start recruiting participantsDesigners should begin working on a quick-win prototype based purely on stakeholder requirements.

• Day Two: Schedule participants and draft the interview guide

• Day Three: Finalize the schedule and complete the interview guideThe quick-win prototype should be nearly complete. This is a good time for the researchers and designers to review one another’s work.

• Day Four: Test participants and summarize findings

The Design SprintUnpack the problem statement and approach the solution from multiple angles

The Design Sprint:

• A sprint model pioneered by Google Ventures

• The sprint is a five-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers.

• Working together in a sprint, you can shortcut the endless-debate cycle and compress months of time into a single week.

• Instead of waiting to launch a minimal product to understand if an idea is any good, you’ll get clear data from a realistic prototype.

Design Sprint: The Components

• UnpackWhat do we know?

• SketchHow would you solve it?

• DecideOkay so what are the best ideas?

• PrototypeTurn it into a clickable interface

• TestDear users… did we nail it?

As usual, Enterprise breaks everything good in the world

In enterprise installing a new process isn’t so much about turning the ship, it’s about turning the iceberg.

1. Stakeholders are busy people

2. Decision makers want a top-line summary, not details

3. Designers find it frustrating to have to do their ideation with stakeholders in the room

4. Businesses are execution focused.

5. Agile purists will tell you the design sprint is waterfall masquerading as agile

6. They’re intensely exhausting.

7. They don’t understand the deliverable

8. They like to tell you what is impossible

9. Modern enterprises are super virtualized.

10. Lack of consistent user information

How to make dual-track enterprise agile work

• Evangelize goal-directed design

• Know the lenses of Human Centered Design

• Learn how to write, work with, and love KPIs

• Establish a consistent project intake with a UX Brief

• Constantly communicate the value, especially after a conflict

The UX Brief

1. Describe the business opportunity

2. What business objectives capitalize on the opportunity?

3. How can we measure the objectives as conversions?

4. What are our primary user types and what do we know about their behaviors?

5. Where and how is the user interacting with our product?

6. What budget, time, or platform constraints exist?

7. Is there any specific creative direction that needs to be followed outside of the standard branding guidelines?

Oh, did I mention nobody has time for this s**t?

Unpacking the Data when there is too much of some and not enough of the rest.

Sketch DayWhen most of you can’t be in the same room.

Discuss DayThe stakeholders all get to be cops again, but now they’re your friends.

Prototyping DayWhen most of you can’t be in the same room.

Test DayAll you really need to do here is think ahead and have a budget

So here’s what is going to happen your first time

Q&A Session