Agile Development that Incorporates User Experience, Part 2
Chapter: Agile — theory and history
As I’m reading through the Nielsen Norman Group’s lengthy report Agile Development that Incorporates User Experience, I will be sharing notes & key quotes chapter by chapter.
Key Takeaways
The Agile method must be understood before it’s possible to understand how to incorporate UX into each sprint. Mindset and communication are key elements to understanding how to incorporate the two.
It’s important to remember that at its heart, Agile is just a project planning methodology.
Key Quotes
“Making a link — if only in your own mind — between the Agile Manifesto and Principles and user experience techniques is essential if you want to get a place at the project planning table.”
“The very process of developing code requires trying out ideas and then improving upon them. If code doesn’t pass verification tests, it is iterated within the sprint until it is suitable. Thus we would characterize Agile as an incremental series of iterative steps.”
“Well- managed Agile teams typically have clear goals and track against clear plans. The clear communication needed to ensure success requires good project planning and management techniques.”
Main Elements of Agile
0 — The Agile Manifesto
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
1 — Stories
Used to describe key elements of the system in the form of user tasks.
Stories are written in a specific format; statements of ‘As a ___ I can ___’. This forces story creators to consider which user of the system they are trying to satisfy, and what the task is that the user is trying to perform.
Incorporating UX: User personas & user requirement research can influence the creation of stories.
2 — Backlog
A prioritized, typically physical location, of story cards.
The backlog is reprioritized regularly as business needs change and more information on users or the market for the product becomes known.
Incorporating UX: Personas, scenerios, storyboards & wireframes help prioritization.
3 — Sprint
2–4 week developmental cycle where stories are extracted from the backlog and worked on. “Tasks” — estimated work items & hours — are assigned each story.
Tasks must be valuable, testable and small enough to complete within a sprint.
Incorporating UX: Focus on user tasks to keep developers focused.
4 — Scrum
A daily way for team members to communicate to ensure work is on track.
What did you do yesterday?
What will you do today?
What is in your way?
5 — Burndown Chart
A chart that tracks work (aka: “story points”) on stories within a sprint.
Using story points as the unit of measurement provides a direct link back to the backlog. If the team were to use time, cost or any other measure then the relationship between work done and work still on the to-do list would be lost, reducing the capacity of the team to understand whether they are on track or not.
Incorporating UX: Answers how close you are to meeting user goals.
6 — QA
Testing to determine if a story has met its exit criteria.
Because the whole team is aware of the exit criteria before development begins, they build the software to meet these criteria rather than to meet some other set of assumptions.
Incorporating UX: User testing can be used to see if exit criteria is met.
7 — Spike
Time allowed to learn.
Spikes are assigned story points, and take place within a sprint. This provides a time constraint by defining the maximum time that will be spent learning.
Incorporating UX: Allows time to evaluate impact on users.
Chapters
- Executive Summary
- Agile — theory and history
- Agile in practice
- Challenges for UX practitioners
- Integrating UX into Agile teams
- Guerilla Usability — Quick & Dirty Techniques
- Making it Happen
Be sure to follow me for the following parts to this series.
