Agile, from a development process to a product creation process

The people who are successful with agile realise that it’s not just a set of techniques; agile is about creating better products, and making the process less painful along the way; but, agile’s roots are in the product development world, not the product creation world. So how do you make sure your agile processes take on board the contributions of end users, business management, product managers and other team members?

Don’t lose sight of the vision. Somewhere in the process of creating a web application, it’s necessary to define “What does this product do?” “Who is the customer and what does she value?“ and even “What should the experience of using this product feel like?” Many people assume that these things can be figured out iteratively as development continues but with out these fundamentals in place, even the best agile development team will not create a great product. A clear information architecture makes it easier for everyone on the project to share the same vision and contribute to a shared objective Although some people have the impression that information architecture is solely a “waterfall” method, in reality it is a highly iterative process

Don’t lose sight of who the real customer is. An agile customer is often the business manager who commissioned for the project, not necessarily the end user of the web application. When an agile team does have a chance to show work-in-progress to actual end-users, their feedback can be difficult to interpret or prioritise due to conflicting views of the “customer”. Information architects work well when partnered with product managers and other business stakeholders to understand and balance business and user goals. Information architects can clarify and articulate the product through stories and sketches that create conversation and consensus.

Don’t lose sight of the big picture. Developers need user stories to be small so they can be tested and built in a single iteration. Even when a team starts with some idea of the overall experience they want to create, once it’s broken into granular user stories, it can be difficult to identify useful interaction patterns and maintain a coherent product framework. Using Agile techniques, it’s possible to come up with solutions for every user story, and still fall short on making a product that’s a pleasure to use. By thinking about the design problem at a higher level than user stories, information architects can help developers understand the underlying interface patterns and framework of the design and assist with the sequencing of user stories as they are implemented.

Don’t fail to integrate visual design. Visual designers who produce static pixel-level screen mock-ups can find it hard to integrate their process with an Agile development team. When responding to the needs of the evolving product it can feel like they are always playing “catch up” and trying to rework visual and interaction design decisions that were made by developers as they built the product. Developers can feel that designs of this nature are “brittle” and that visual designers are not responsive to their needs. By working through architecture in low-fidelity sketches, it is possible to quickly iterate on different design solutions, which helps developers save time and make good decisions.