Hashtag Agile

[hashtagagile-blog]

Working the day job, leading a UX team and developing strategies for deployment in client project, I get a lot of experience of seeing how different teams and projects employ an agile process.

As with any other UX or design team, we frequently have to practice different theories and structures within these projects, dependant on the clients choice and the scrum master that’s been hired in. First of all, to enable my team to have the dexterity to manipulate their skills and blend the methodologies they choose, in with the agile structure being that’s in place, we try and make the above sections/areas, components which can plug and play.

Secondly, to allow us to have the ability to consult on the agile structure yet to be enforced on a project, in the early days (if we get brought in at the beginning), we have a thorough understanding and grounded strategy to offer. Having clear points laid out that can make up an agile development, means we adapt our strategy as needed. Further to that, having a base understanding of the kind of resources required at each point to really make it effective, means we can offer the right resource straight away, depending on the employed strategy.

[hashtagagile-blog]

The lifecycle of an agile development is open to perception and interpretation, depending on what you have heard, learnt or read about the methodology. Many will carry it out differently, a by-product of it's youth and rapid growth in the professional world.

There is a common theme I have seen myself, being lead UX on several government projects I have gained experience from the very beginning stages all the way to release of the eventual MVP.

'Sprint Zero', a phase that for some is called 'Inception' or just 'Scoping'. This is the initiation period where the department leads and product owner from the client side come in to talk over and solutionise on the project deliverables. What the definition of 'Done' is, what MVP is visualised as, the time frame and which activities we can justify (...user testing, interactive prototyping etc.).

Sprint one onwards is the heart of the agile development, the iterative stages of build, test and implement. In each stage of course there are stand-ups, retrospectives, testing and research. The driving force here is ultimately the user stories which are picked up, played and catered for by individual members of the team which is where the factor of progress is realised.

On from this, once development is completed you are going to expect a deliverable, at the very least MVP (Minimum viable product) which effectively is the bare bones of what the client initially asked for, working, tested and deployable.

This visual sums up those main phases which structure the agile development, it effectively comes down to interpretation and requirements for each project.

[hashtagagile-blog]

As a project team become a scrum team within an agile development, there can be a strong hierarchy and structure. After all, one of the valuable factors of working agile, is promoting daily stand-ups and making sure current and forecast progress is shared among the team.

Within this stand-up the scrum team congregate, sometimes just in an area, around the desks or in front of a Kanban which holds user stories for which individual team members are responsible for. The Kanban can be a valuable tool and offers a permanent visual aid/inspiration for progressing through a project, seeing all the problems, accomplishments and most importantly, velocity.

To reflect the resource structure I have been working with on projects, I created an 'Expectation' visual. This simply just states the scrum teams position and the lead roles.

You may have spotted a wee bit inspiration taken from 'The Big Bang Theory' and their episode titling.