Designing Agile Interactions

Sami NiemeläCreative Director, Nordkapp@samin / www.nordkapp.fi

DESIGNINGAGILEINTERACTIONS

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Hello, my name is Sami Niemelä. I am the creative director of an interactive design consultancy Nordkapp from Helsinki, Finland. We design and develop strategy, products, services and transformations. Our clients are multinational media companies, operators, mobile phone manufacturers and also other consultancies such as IDEO.

DESIGNINGAGILEINTERACTIONS


The topic I want to talk about today is combining interaction design practice with agile development. And especially working from the outside on a consultants’ point of view. To coincide with this, a project we just finished “a world record in agile” where we helped to build a online tv system for our client SuomiTV on top of Brightcove’s technology platform.

Agile

source: www.merriam-webster.com

1 : marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace <an agile dancer>2 : having a quick resourceful and adaptable character <an agile mind>


Let’s focus on semantics for a second—the Merriam Webster definition of the word Agile is quite an interesting one. Especially the second bit— “resourceful and adaptable character”— is by definition is very interesting, and important. In my mind this says a lot about the role of designer in the modern design practice.

THE AGILE MANIFESTO— Individuals and interactions overprocesses and tools

— Working software over comprehensive documentation

— Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

— Responding to change over following a plan


Here’s the original agile manifesto. As you can see, it’s all about the constant adaptation to change. This is where I think a lot of the challenges arise. Don’t get me wrong — agile is good for a lot of things such as quick ROI for client - things happen visibly all the time, and the main goal is to produce working software. As Agile is based on sprints, it's also quite good on keeping the train moving in design as well

STRUCTUREVS

CHANGE


As practice, design is about creating structure through methodology, processes and patterns. Agile is about adapting to change and evolution as you go.

How does this apply to design process then?

INSIGHT SYNTHESIS IMPLEMENTATION


Here’s the typical design process, from research to synthesis and implementation. The further up the value chain you go, the worse Agile methodology works by itself. Remember, the main goal of agile is to provide working software in an extremely reactive environment. Not define strategy or even long term directions.

” —IxD brings vision, Agile brings control.”

@petterihiisila


Here’s a quote from a friend of mine when discussing agile & ixd on Twitter. I think it crystallizes the issue pretty well. What we need is a controlled way of working in sync with the developers without sacrificing the long term clarity.

TIME

DESIGN

DEVELOPMENT


One thing worth noticing as well is that large projects tend to be design-heavy in the beginning, but once everything is defined the development starts rolling on – and the need for design keeps getting smaller.

TIME

COMPLEXITY

A


On the other hand, in an agile project, complexity grows over time. the bigger and longer the project, more moving parts to take care.

Strategy

Planning

Design

Development Sprint - 2 Sprint - 1 Sprint x Development

Sprint x Design

Sprint +1Sprint x Planning Sprint + 2

Sprint +1Sprint -1


Here’s the design process broken down into agile sprint model. The basics are pretty simple - planning is done one sprint ahead of design is done one spring ahead of development. All fine and dandy–

Sprint - 2 Sprint - 1 Working Code

Stories + UX

Sprint +1Features + Requirements Sprint + 2

Sprint +1Sprint -1

Strategy

Planning

Design

Development


– and it goes on as quite systematic process where sprint features are being mirrored with the scrum team, fed to designers and finally diluted down into Scrum user stories.

—HOW?


How to do this then? One important question is ask here is are you working on supporting an existing product or creating something new?

“SPRINT 0”

S0 S1 S2 S3 ETC


When working on a *new* project, the development team you’re working most probably has a sprint 0 for preparations and setting up di!erent things. Apart from agreeing the culture and way of working, this is an opportunity for design to raise up a flag and take this as an opportunity for fill any missing holes in concepting. Actually, in some cases the S0 can take up to several months.

YOU’LL NEED— Strategy

— Concrete Directions, communicated

— The right people.


The purpose of S0 is to make sure your team has everything they need to do their work. In terms of design, here are the things that are necessary to make the project happen:— Strategy — where are you intending to go to and why?— How will your team get there? e.g. design patterns, any frameworks, design drivers and principles.— And of course the right people.

—WHO ARE THE KEY PEOPLE?


As in anything, the key asset for successful project are the people involved.

—SCRUM MASTER


The scrum master should be someone who understands design well enough, and is willing to change her own craft as well.

—DESIGN TEAM(S)


The design teams—Why a plural? Because in the long run, a project needs a lot of support on implementation phase as well. And if your team has to design the concept along with giving out support for the dev team, it gets quite intense quite soon. And in order to deliver quality work, we need to make the support a team on its own.

—THE PRODUCT OWNER


You most important person is the Product owner - someone who is involved with the project 100%, and senior enough to be accountable for major decisions. I agree with Alan Cooper on that ideally PO is a senior interaction designer. It has to be someone who understands all sides of the project, a generalist.

—WHAT CAN GO WRONG?


So, like said—going agile means going systematic. There are several things that can go wrong but are easily avoidable.

— NO STRATEGIC DIRECTION


First one is having no vision. This means decision making has no direction, and this leads very easily to reactive, scrum-led design which doesn’t quite work for anyone.

— LACK OF CLEAR,SHARED VISION


Apart from existing, the strategy should also be shared and communicated to everyone involved. The decide-as-you-go -moments will be some much easier and consistent when everyone knows where the projects should go to. Be visual, tell stories here.

— NO COMMON CULTURE


with no culture, your project is a mess ›More complex the project, more systematic you need to be. Establish ways of working, build the culture for the teams. Even down to small details like email rules. Sounds nitpicking, but when you put strange people working together in a mid-to high stress environment, it's the small things like these that cause friction.

— PRODUCT NOT OWNED


Your most important person absent leads very to scrum-led design. Which is sometimes fine by itself, but only if you're mostly doing design support.

—WHAT CAN YOU DO?


Like said, these are the opvious pitfalls but they are quite avoidable as well.

— Have a vision that everyone understands.

—Make sure everyone understands the importance of their commitment.

— Work as a catalyst for your team.

—Make friends with the developers. In the end, they are the ones that make or break the project.

— Involve your client as much as possible. As in agile should.


- Have a vision that everyone agrees. Especially the business stakeholders. Make sure it's communicated visually: stories, images, example scenarios...- Make sure everyone understands the importance of their commitment. - Have all the necessary assets for your team: brand guidelines, visual language, behaviors, interaction models, design patterns. - Make friends with the developers. In the end, they are the ones that make or break the project.- A project glossary: if needed, prepare a document outlining the terminology in the project. Useful esp for your clients!- Involve your client as much as possible. As in agile should.

Agile Interaction Design manifesto

— No silos, no unnecessary hierarchies but a mutual culture, roles and responsibilities.

— Defined behavior within refined, working software

— Open dialogue and shared languagewith genuine collaboration

— Common, communicated vision with willingness and resources to change.


I’d like to propose an Agile Interaction Design manifesto on top of the old one:

— No silos, no unnecessary hierarchies but a mutual culture, roles and responsibilities.

— Defined behavior within refined, working software

— Open dialogue and shared language with genuine collaboration

— Common, communicated vision with willingness and resources to change.

…


So, to conclude this thing. At best, working with a solid agile team is a wonderful experience. I'd like to compare it to a swarm intelligence— everyone acts as individuals on shared goal, DNA, and culture. It's not easy, but it can be done. The results of a working process can be beautiful.

KIITOS

Sami NiemeläCreative Director, Nordkapp

sami (at) nordkapp.fi@samin

www.nordkapp.fi


Thank you. It was a pleasure talking to you. Please ask questions, comment—I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.