Dr. Marta Kristín Lárusdóttir

Infinit Event Copenhagen

6th December 2016

User Involvement in Agile Projects

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Marta – Education and Work Experience

www.ru.iswww.hr.is

Subjects

• WHY is it important to involve users?

• HOW can we involve users in agile development?

• WHAT do IT professionals do?

• HOW do they succeed?

• HOW can you improve your user involvement?

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My Critical Moment in 1998

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Our Great Software MMDS

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The Development Process

• The Clients came with 3 months interval– from Australia

• We were working for more than a year– On the Australian system

– A team of 10 – 15 people

– We had an ISO 9001 accreditation for our process

• I was responsible for functional testing

• I went to Australia to teach the users – how to use the system

– 5 weeks before the deployment

• I discovered some problems

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A study from Sweden – White Collar Workers

• 38% think it is hard to learn how

to use the IT systems

• Estimate that 26 mins in average

could be saved each day

– IT systems without problems

• 10 - 12 million SEK could

be saved each year

• Reference: TJÄNSTEMÄNNENS IT-MILJÖ 2014 - ”Lyssna på

oss som ska använda det”– http://www.unionen.se/filer/rapport/tjanstemannens-it-miljo-2014-lyssna-pa-oss-

som-ska-anvanda-det

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Standish Report - 2015

Standish Group 2015 Chaos Report - Q&A with Jennifer Lynch

https://www.infoq.com/articles/standish-chaos-2015

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So..... Involving Users is Important

But HOW?

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Scrum

• Roles

• Product Owner

• Scrum Master

• Team member

• Artifacts

• Product Backlog

• Sprint Backlog

• Product Increment

• Activities

• Sprint planning

• Retrospective

• Sprint review (demo)

• Daily standup meetings

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The Phases of User Involvement

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Methods: Understand the Context of Use

Interviews

Workshops

Meetings

Field study

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Methods: Specify User Requirements

Personas

User Stories

Scenarios

Usability Goals

Mr. and Mrs. Macomb are retired schoolteachers who are now in their 70's.

Their Social Security checks are an important part of their income. They've

just sold their big house and moved to a small apartment. They know that

one of the many chores they need to do now is to tell the Social Security

Administration that they have moved. They don't know where the nearest

Social Security office is and it's getting harder for them to do a lot of walking

or driving, so they would like to do this on the computer if it is easy and safe

enough. However, they are somewhat nervous about doing a task like this

by computer. They never used computers in their jobs; but their son, Steve,

gave them a computer last year, set it up for them, and showed them how to

use email and how to go to Web sites. They have never been to the Social

Security Administration's Web site, so they don't know how it is organized.

Also, they are reluctant to give out personal information on Web sites, so

they want to know how safe it is to tell the agency about their new address

this way.

1. 90% of students can find information about

how to apply for funding (effectiveness)

2. It takes each student less than 2 minutes to

apply for funding (efficiency)

3. Students grade their overall satisfaction

above 4 on average on a 1- 5 scale

(Satisfaction)

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Methods: Produce Design Solutions

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Methods: Evaluations

Expert evaluation

Informal evaluation

Prototype interview

Formal evaluation

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Agile UX

Charles Lamdin on Twitter:

https://mobile.twitter.com/CGLambdin/status/712713187833958400

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Many Possible Ways of Including

Users in Agile Projects

WHAT works for IT professionals?

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Researching User Involvement in Agile

• Studied with IT professionals in Sweden and Iceland

– 4 surveys (~250 part.) and 4 interview studies (~40 participants)

• Many collaborators

– University professors and students

• Written many papers about it

– Google profile: Marta Larusdottir• https://scholar.google.is/citations?user=cTb1MVIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

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Survey: Usability Techniques in Scrum

Yuan Jia Marta Kristín Lárusdóttir Åsa Cajander

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Main Questions

• How many participants have used the methods

– Out of the 13 user centred design techniques selected?

• How often are the techniques used?

• How do the IT professionals rate the techniques

they have used?

• Paper in 2012

• 49 participants in Scrum Projects mainly in Sweden

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Fundamental Scrum Activities

• Retrospective less frequent than other meeting types

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How Many Have Used each Method?

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How Often Do They Use the Methods?

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What is the Best Method?

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Interview study in Sweden

Marta Kristín Lárusdóttir Åsa Cajander Jan Gulliksen

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Interview Study for Deeper Understanding

• Did 21 interview in Sweden

– 2 researchers

• Interviewees had various roles

• Met them at different places

• The objective

– Deeper understanding of user

involvement in Scrum

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Results: Types of Evaluation Conducted

Type of evaluation

Empirical

Quantitative

Evaluation Empirical Qualitative Evaluation

Analytical

Qualitative

Evaluation

Evaluation

Method

Professional Role

NMeasuring

user

performance

and surveys

Observing

Users

Asking

user their

opinions

Feedback

from user

surrogates

Inspection

evaluation

Usability experts 5 2 5 4 1 5

Interaction designers 7 1 5 6 3 3

Business analysts 4 0 1 4 0 1

Developers 2 0 0 1 1 2

Scrum managers 3 1 2 3 2 1

Total 21 4 13 18 7 12

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Results: Purpose of the Evaluation

Purpose of the

Evaluation

Professional Role N

Feedback on

Context of

Use

Feedback on

User

Requirements

Feedback on

Design

Usability experts 5 3 4 5

Interaction designers 7 5 6 6

Business analysts 4 3 4 3

Developers 2 1 0 2

Scrum managers 3 0 2 3

Total 21 12 16 19

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Who is Responsible for a Usable Product?

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Informal and Implicit User Involvement

in Scrum Projects

WHAT matters for succeeding?

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The Male UX Specialist

• PhD in HCI

• 46 years old

• 13 years of experience in different

consultant companies

• Has integrated UX in several Scrum

projects

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His Focus and Opinions

• The strategic vision and the UX goals are

necessary to define

– before the actual project starts

• The big picture of UX is missing in Scrum.

– Scrum is feature oriented

• Most user involvement should be done before

production starts

– and then every now and then

• Close collaboration with the PO is important

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His Way of Integrating UCD and Scrum

Illustration from the web page: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WATERFALL, AGILE &

INTEGRATED PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN CREATIVE FIRMS

http://adsubculture.com/traffic-project-management/2015/1/21/the-difference-between

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The Female UX Specialist

• Master of Media Technology Science

• 35 years old

• 4 years of experience from working in

industry

• UX specialist

• Very successful in her work so far

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Her Focus and Opinions

• She was the owner of the design

– The team was collaborating on developing that

– Collaborated with informal leaders of the teams

• Being a part of the whole project is needed

– Small talk essential

• Her company started to sell UX

– rather than features

• Hard to find good timing for UX evaluation in Scrum

• She often designs one sprint ahead

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Her Approach as Suggested by Sy

Desirée Sy. 2007. Adapting usability investigations for agile user-centered

design. J. Usability Studies 2, 3 (May 2007), 112-132.

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Informal and implicit user

involvement in Scrum

HOW can you improve your

user involvement?

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HOW Can You Improve the User Involvement?

• Define the responsibility for UX

– for all roles; team members, Scrum master and PO.

• Meet face-to-face

– People responsible for Usability and UX should regularly

have face-to-face communication with the actual users

– At least once during each sprint

– Preferably in their own environment

• Conduct formal evaluation when possible

– These are highly rated

• Use multiple channels

– such as social media, user forums or tweets to include the

users in parallel with face-to-face communication