When my colleague Patrick Goffin wrote his recent (Fr)agile blog post, it sparked some lively discussions here. What was particularly interesting was how our different backgrounds influenced our view of the advantages and disadvantages of agile processes for creating great user experiences.

My perspective comes from managing a number of software products and software development groups through the transition from waterfall to agile approaches. In these roles I created and owned the product concept and was responsible for its realisation in the delivered product. And I found this much easier to do in agile rather than waterfall projects.

Earlier integration and test helps create better user experiences

I have seen several large waterfall projects crash and burn because components were integrated and tested far too late. By the time serious problems were found the release deadline was looming, most of the budget had already been spent and the people needed to resolve the problem had moved to other projects or even left the company.

The imperative on agile projects to "deliver working software frequently" should drive them towards frequent (continuous?) integration and test. So they can catch problems before they grow too big and while they still have the time and resource to do something about them. This also requires some leadership within the agile team to prevent difficult tasks being continually pushed into later iterations.

I found this early integration really valuable in creating a consistent interaction style and visual style across a large product, as components produced in early iterations could act as exemplars for later components. And it is now giving UXers the chance to inject some 'undercover' or 'guerilla' user testing to expose usability and usefulness issues, and get them resolved earlier.

To really drive this home UXers should push to get basic user testing included in their team's 'definition of done' and push to get the challenging user journeys built in early iterations.

Self-contained teams produce better products faster

For me, the second great benefit of an agile approach is having a self-contained team with all the skills needed to create the product and the authority to make its own decisions. This saves so much time and avoids so much frustration.

Many years ago I worked in an organisation that had separate teams of testers, developers, architects, product managers, analysts, writers, etc., with all the delays, whingeing and brick-throwing that you might expect. Bringing all these people together into agile teams has been painful, but ultimately incredibly rewarding. And bringing UX people into the mix is painful, but can bring the same rewards.

The product roadmap provides the big picture

Common complaints about agile are the poor quality of the incoming stories or use cases and the lack of a clear overall vision to tie them all together. In most of my jobs I was lucky enough to be able to maintain a longer-term roadmap for my products. And I saw the benefits this had for projects.

The product roadmap set out a clear vision for each new product or release. What it would provide to the business and to our customers, what it would contain, what design principles would guide it, etc. So when it came to building a new feature, while there was still detailed design work to do, the purpose of the feature was clear and its place in the big picture was clear.

The roadmap also helped to drive through broad improvements to usability, performance, reliability, etc. If all you have is a backlog of functionality-focussed stories, these vital efforts too often get squeezed out.

So UXers should push their way into the product planning process, or push to create one if none exists. This is where you get to do your design research and concept design, and where you get to create the big picture that carries through the project.

Agile does not mean 'no documentation'

The Agile Manifesto states that "we have come to value … Working software over comprehensive documentation." I heartily agree with this. When you are creating a software product or system, documentation is a means to an end. And working software is that end.

But somehow, for some teams, this has been warped into no documentation, no specifications, just code. As well as leading to the lack of a big picture that I described earlier, this also cuts the legs out from under the UXers on the team. As Hannah Donovan has said, "Your super power is that you can visualise things in your head and you can draw them." If we can't draw concepts, service blueprints, storyboards, wireframes, illustrations of design principles, etc., then how do we 'talk' to the rest of the team. Do we just wave our hands? Or try to explain everything in a tweet-sized story?

So while UXers should not expect the rest of the team to wait while they create a complete and comprehensive specification of every aspect of the design, UXers can and should produce drawings to communicate both the big picture for the product and the more detailed design of specific components.

A good way to think about this is the transition from always using a language like UML to create a complete specification of a software product before building anything, to using UML as a sketching language to help team-members communicate their design ideas, while they are building a product.

Understanding the UML as Sketch idea is a good way to understand and explain how UX outputs can fit into an agile project, and how UXers can make them in bite-sized chunks.

So …

While this is a personal take on agile and UX rooted in my own experience rather than any research, conversations with Johanna Kollmann and others from Agile UX Meetup suggest that I'm not completely wrong.

What do you think?

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Back in May, we popped over to Koleksiyon's beautiful showroom in Brewhouse Yard to run two ideation workshops for Clerkenwell Design Week. We hoped to use the space to inspire new product and service ideas for interactive and intelligent objects and spaces for home, work and play.

The two workshops were linked, with the first creating new product and service concepts, and the second considering design solutions. In this blog post I describe the conduct and results of the workshops. For more on the structure of the workshops and the materials we created, please read my earlier blog post.

Creating concepts

I facilitated the first workshop with my colleague James Sunderland. During the morning we set ourselves up in the office furniture area of the Koleksiyon showroom, and when it was time to start we had 13 willing participants.

As part of our introduction exercise we had asked everyone to think of a piece of furniture that had a special meaning for them. This worked incredibly well, both in illuminating the personality, history and passions of the participants, and also in highlighting the depth of the connections we can have with seemingly mundane objects.

A brief but passionate talk by Koray Malhan, the General Manager of Koleksiyon, was a late addition to the workshop agenda, but I'm so glad we managed to include it. Covering aspects of history, politics, economics, design theory and industrial sociology, the talk set the scene for some broad and innovative thinking about the position and influence of furniture in our private and working lives. About the place of furniture as emotional and meaningful, rather than just practical, objects.

We then divided the participants into four groups to begin exploring possible concepts. Each group had plenty of pens, sticky notes and worksheets. At this stage James and I toured the groups, joining their discussions, encouraging them to visualise their ideas, and giving occasional reminders of time left. Interestingly, some groups chose to work together on a series of ideas, while in other groups, individuals used the worksheets to record their own ideas before sharing them with the rest of their group.

We then encouraged the groups to review their initial thinking and to refine and capture their concepts ready for sharing with the rest of the group. As before, James and I toured the groups, helping them clarify their concepts, and giving occasional timing reminders.

The concepts that emerged in the Show & Tells were beyond anything we expected. From a 'pimp my chair' service complete with racetracks, leader boards and an accessories market. Through a 'sharing couch' where people could leave ideas, thoughts, stories and calls for help for others to pick up and respond to and extend or just learn from or be inspired by. To furniture that accretes a patina of memories over its life, that could by accessed by future users, with some memories worn away, overlaid, extended or replaced as the furniture is passed on and freecycled through many generations.

Here are some of the worksheets that the groups produced along the way:

And you can view the groups' Show & Tells on our YouTube channel:

Design solutions

My colleagues James Sunderland and Stuart Penny were back the next day to facilitate the second workshop. This time we had 6 volunteers, so we divided them into two groups of 3 and James and Stuart each joined one of the groups.

We started the workshop with the same introduction exercise and Koray gave another inspiring introduction.

We then showed the teams the recordings of the Show & Tells from the first workshop and asked them to choose one of the concepts as the start point for their work.

At this stage the groups worked to create several options for realising their chosen concept. Once again the groups had plenty of pens, sticky notes and worksheets that they could use to capture their design ideas.

Once they had created some initial options, we asked the groups to synthesise and refine their ideas and to use the worksheets to capture one design solution. James and Stuart worked with their groups to help them focus their efforts and prepare to give an 'Elevator Pitch' of their idea.

The groups produced some great designs including intelligent and interactive street furniture that used near field communications to promote a community spirit and tables that promote information sharing through food!

Here are some of the worksheets that the groups produced to express their designs:

And you can view the groups' Elevator Pitches on our YouTube channel:

Conclusion

We had a great time running the workshops for Clerkenwell Design Week. Koleksiyon were fantastic hosts and we'd be proud to work with them again. And we met lots of smart and enthusiastic people who astonished us with their ideas. We just hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.

Can't wait for next year!

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I love working in our offices in Clerkenwell. We have great labs and studio rooms, lots of skylights and even our own courtyard. And we are also at the heart of one of London's most creative districts. This is exemplified by Clerkenwell Design Week, a three day international festival celebrating the best in design with more than 150 events, pop up exhibitions, installations, talks, performances, music and workshops.

Flow and Koleksiyon

This year we got together with Koleksiyon, a furniture design company from Turkey, to run two ideation workshops in their beautiful new showroom in Brewhouse Yard. From the start we were impressed with Koleksiyon's commitment to collaboration and co-creation and their philosophy of rooting design in the "culture, history and geography" of "a particular time and place."

Ideation workshops

We planned two short workshops that would use Koleksiyon's showroom space to inspire new product or service ideas for interactive and intelligent objects and spaces for home, work and play.

Our aim for the first workshop was to create new product and service concepts. Here we would not focus on how the product or service might work, just what it would be capable of and what the experience would be like. The output of this workshop would be a 'show and tell' of each concept.

Our aim for the second workshop was to take the output of the first workshop and consider how the new product or service might actually work and how a person might interact with it. The output form this workshop would be an 'elevator pitch' for each product or service.

We scheduled the 90 minute sessions that participants could fit into a 'long lunch' on the Wednesday and Thursday of the festival.

Recruiting participants

We promoted the workshops through the Clerkenwell Design Week website and timetable, through twitter and through our professional and personal contacts. For each workshop we wanted to recruit 16 participants from a variety of backgrounds so we could put together mixed workgroups of three or four.

To help the participants start their thinking before the workshops, we gave them a homework task. We asked them to think of a piece of furniture that was connected to a special meaning, experience or memory for them. And to bring an image of the piece of furniture to the workshop.

Workshop structure

It can seem like a contradiction, but creative workshops need careful planning to create a structure and set of rules that help focus participants' efforts, but leave enough room for participants to find their own path and use their diverse skills. This was particularly important for these workshops as the time constraints (90 minutes sessions) did not allow for any wasted time.

The structure for the first workshop was:

1. Introductions - to help the participants get to know each other and to give them time to get comfortable with the showroom space
2. Inspiration and context - Koray Malhan, the General Manager of Koleksiyon, explains their design philosophy
3. Exploration - groups create lots of possible product and service ideas
4. Capture - groups refine their best ideas and record them using the worksheets
5. Show and tell - groups present their best ideas to camera using the materials they have created.

The structure for the second workshop was:

1. Introductions - as first workshop
2. Inspiration and context - as first workshop
3. Concept showreel - participants watch the Show and Tell recordings from the first workshop
4. Options - groups choose concepts to work on and create several design options for each concept
5. Capture - groups refine their designs and create descriptions and interaction storyboards for their best designs
6. Elevator pitch - groups present their best ideas to camera using the materials they have created.

Materials

For the introductions we asked the participants to pair off and to fill out an introduction card for their partner. Participants would then introduce their partner, and their partner would describe their special piece of furniture.

To structure the participants' efforts and to help them work quickly, we gave them stacks of worksheets and lots of pens and sticky notes.

Wait and hope

Recruitment went well and both workshops filled up quite nicely in the days before the festival. We were getting excited.

On the day before the workshops I dropped in on the rather lovely party that Koleksiyon hosted to launch their new showroom. All we could do now was wait and hope that someone showed up the next day.

Coming soon: Find out how the workshops turned out!

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