The Agile Gap: Closing it with User Experience

© 2012 IBM Corporation

The Agile Gap:Closing it with User Experience

Brian M. Anderson & Kaleb D. Walton


When have you experienced this in an Agile environment?


Why did this happen to you?


““We are always trying to push ourselves We are always trying to push ourselves upstream. The thing about Agile is there is upstream. The thing about Agile is there is no upstream.” no upstream.” - Hugh Beyer, Author of User Centered Agile Methods- Hugh Beyer, Author of User Centered Agile Methods


The Agile Gap – Understanding the user experience

Requirements

UserExperienceDevelopment

Do you see any of this?– Ineffective prioritization– Unstable development with constant rework,

thrashing and delay– Inconsistent, frustrating and low-value

product experience– Miscommunication about your product from

outside of development

Agile facilitates communication primarily focused on Requirements + Development

The gap is not in the requirements or development - it’s in the understanding of the user experience



Can you close the gap with existing agile tools?


Adding context is contrary to INVEST–Story Independence deters expression of total UX–Context is big, not Small, reducing story agility–Heavy context may imply undue Value

User stories aren't broken – don't fix them!

User Stories


Just a large user story

Adding context brings same problems as with user stories

Total user experience is often comprised of multiple epics

Epics aren't broken – don't fix them!

User Stories

Epics


“Paints a picture of the future that draws people in” - Scrum Alliance

Helps to point people in the same direction

Never intended to describe user experience

Wrong tool for the job

User Stories

Epics

Product Vision


Other ways to define the user experience?

Use cases–Lack valuable user context (motivator trigger)–Too detailed and task specific (action-oriented)–Takes too much time

More meetings!–Takes time away from development–Different meetings for different groups–Slow, expensive method to close the gap


How do you close the gap?


Introducing the “Scenario”

Borrowing a concept from the UX discipline

Our definition:

A real-world example of a person's experience with a product, describing context with a problem and a proposed solution, bringing focus to their goals.

Paints a picture of an experience that has value and can be sold


Example Scenario The “elevator pitch”

EFFECTIVE PRIORITIZATION AND ASSIGNMENT OF WORK ITEMS

PROBLEMMary, a systems manager at ABC Health, is responsible for a team of 12 system administrators who handle steady state support of their health care systems and network. One of her biggest time sinks is prioritizing and assigning her teams daily work efforts. The tool she uses, Systems Manager Plus, doesn't give her any prioritization features except for the ability to sort on a 'priority' field when reviewing work items.

As she spends half of her time prioritizing she ends up working over time to tend to her other duties.

SOLUTIONAfter a major update Mary signs into Systems Manager Plus, heads to the work items area and is pleasantly surprised to see a number of new prioritization capabilities. There are more fields available to sort and filter, as well as a “smart assignment” system that enables her to specify rules that will result in automatic assignment to specific members of her team.

Mary creates a few rules, applies them to existing work items, and is excited to see that over a quarter of the items were automatically assigned. She proceeds to sort and filter the remaining work items to prioritize and assign to her team. As more work items trickle in she notices that many of them are being auto-assigned.

These improvements have enabled Mary to focus less on prioritizing and more on doing.


Derived Stories and Epics

Additional sorting capabilitiesAs a systems manager I want to sort work items by additional fields such as created date, severity and platform so that I can more effectively prioritize them.

Additional filtering capabilitiesAs a systems manager I want to filter work items by additional fields such as created date, severity and platform so that I can more effectively prioritize them.

Smart assignment system (epic)As a systems manager I want to specify assignment rules for the system to use to automatically assign work items so that I don't have to assign every work item manually.

Apply new smart assignment rules to existing work itemsAs a systems manager I want to apply new smart assignment rules to existing work items so that I can use smart assignment on work items created after the smart assignment process has executed.


How Do Scenarios Fit in Agile?


Scenarios are Agile

Just Barely Good Enough and Just in Time:– Fidelity naturally matches immediate need.

Ya Ain’t Gonna Need It:– Does it enable the scenario?

Minimum Viable Product:– What is the minimum experience someone

would pay for?

Lightweight Contract:– Low cost, flexible and easy to change.


Yearly Planning Release Planning Sprint Planning Development & Testing Release Review

Starts with ‘investment themes’

Continues with market research and other product management activities (e.g. writing PRD)

As ideas begin to form, conceptual, or “elevator pitch” scenarios are developed

Relative estimates are assigned to each scenario and they are prioritized in a backlog

Replaces PRD



Scenarios broken down & split so they fit into a release

Assigned to upcoming releases based on priority and development throughput

Continued refinement until they are “just barely good enough” to be broken down into stories

Wireframes are often developed during this time period

Scenarios become the lightweight contract between development and product management



Development team reviews scenarios and considered the ‘source of truth’ around the user experience

Common questions about stories are usually answered within the scenario, without product owner hand-holding

Scenarios continue to be refined based upon developer feedback



Scenarios are constantly referenced by development teams to validate the user experience they are creating

Scenarios are often used as the basis for test cases, and for validating the intended experience

Serves as the storyboards for iteration reviews

Progress reporting is scenario-based



Scenarios are used as the storyboards for the review


How do I get started with scenarios?


Begin Today!

Start small: Create scenarios for existing stories & epics– Pick a story from backlog and talk through an example of how it would be used– Add as much context as possible– Think of other stories you could naturally pull into scenario

Continue the evolution: Build your backlog by leading with scenarios

Maintain the format: 2-act play of Problem + Solution

Reinforce through communication: Refer to scenarios instead of stories & epics


Questions?

Brian M. [email protected]

Kaleb D. [email protected]


References

http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2012/03/16/hugh-beyer-ux-inside-agile/ –Hugh Beyer quote

An Easier Way to Develop Product Requirements– http://www.thesource.pdma.org/easier-way-develop-product-requirements

Modernizing “Modern” Applications: Agile and a Strategy of Continual, Iterative Development

– http://www.cutter.com/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1108.html


Fidelity


UX Evolution

Technology

The Agile Gap: Closing it with User Experience