Human-Centered Agile: A Unified Approach for Better Outcomes

Description

This book is a guide on how to apply Human-Centered Design (HCD) practices to an Agile product development model that is used widely throughout industry and government, where it is applied primarily to software and technology development efforts. This has been an ongoing industry challenge due to the fact that HCD prioritizes time spent understanding the problems to be solved (time spent in the problem space), while Agile prioritizes a fast hypothesize-and-deliver model (time spent in the solution space). Organizations that attempt an Agile transformation abandon it either because it was too difficult or because it did not deliver the hoped-for results. At the same time, efforts to improve the design and experience of their products using Human-Centered Design have a tendency to fall short because it can be difficult to see the ROI of design efforts, even while companies like McKinsey document design-driven successes. What’s more, a company that successfully adopts Agile often seems to have an even harder time implementing HCD and vice versa. This is particularly disappointing since Agile and HCD should be mutually supportive. In practice, Agile teams often bypass HCD efforts in favor of finishing their goals and thinking they are doing well, only to have their work product fail to meet the actual end user’s needs. At first the team will become indignant. “We followed the expert guidance of our Product Owner, the ‘Voice of the Customer,’” they will say, followed by “but… it met all of the Acceptance Criteria, they should love it.” It’s a failure of Agile that this type of sub-optimal delivery happens so regularly and predictably. The fact that team responses can be so accurately predicted in advance (by those who’ve seen this movie many times before) point to a process failure or inefficiency that is widespread and desperately needs to be addressed. Alternatively, teams will invest too heavily in up-front discovery efforts that slow down delivery to an unacceptable point, often while also failing to capture research-based findings in a way that matures the overall strategic product or portfolio understanding. The cost of misfiring goes far beyond a bad delivery or an angry customer. Decreased team morale drives poorer future performance (cost), turnover if left unchecked (more cost), and non-productive blame sessions that lead to degraded faith in the Agile product development model itself. This book identifies solutions based on successful methods of integrating HCD practices by phase into an ongoing agile delivery model, from the discovery through implementation and evaluation, including: key success factors for an HCD/Agile engagement approach,critical points of delivery, andstrategies for integrating HCD into teams based on the existing design maturity of an organization or product team. Cover Endorsements Half Title Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of Figures Foreword Preface Acknowledgments About the Authors Introduction—How This Book is Organized 1 What Is Human-Centered Agile, and Why Is It Needed? 2 A Primer on Human-Centered Design HCD = Research + Design Introducing the Phases of HCD Human-Centered vs. User-Centered . . . What’s the Difference? 3 HCD Activities and Artifacts from Discovery through Concept Validation HCD and Discovery HCD and Ideation HCD and Concept Validation 4 HCD Activities and Artifacts from Refinement through Evaluation HCD and Refinement HCD and Development HCD and Solution Validation HCD and Evaluation 5 Bringing Human-Centered Design into Agile “Waterfall” Delivery and Its Challenges Replacing Waterfall with Agile Organic Overlaps between Agile and HCD Where Does HCD Fit in Agile? The “Experimenting” Mindset “Build and See” Agile to “Stakes-based” Human-Centered Agile Embracing Uncertainty 6 “What Are the Stakes?” Product Release Stakes 7 Planning and Conducting HCD Activities in Agile Using a Research Roadmap Estimating, Planning, and Scheduling Specific HCD Activities Using Estimates to Plan HCD Work HCD within Agile Events 8 Managing Distributed Design Efforts in Agile Consistency of Product Design Coordinated Design Activities Design Operations 9 Managing Distributed Research Efforts in Agile Outgrowing Ad Hoc Research Coordinated Research Efforts An Insight Repository 10 Expanding to Small Groups of Agile Teams How Many Product Owners Should There Be? Updating Team Topology Scrum of Scrums—Organically Scaling Scrum Team Alignment Activities Holistic Teams, Holistic Work Moving Past Small Team Clusters Why Are Scaling Frameworks Needed? 11 An Introduction to SAFe® What Is SAFe®? The Four SAFe® Configurations 12 Updating Requirements and Processes at Scale The SAFe® Requirements Model New Planning and Delivery Timebox in SAFe® New Processes at Scale 13 Scaling the Team Structure ARTs Plan in a Longer Timeframe Updating Team Roles for Agile at Scale Updating the Team Topology for HCD at Scale 14 Delivery at Scale: The SAFe® Continuous Delivery Pipeline Continuous Exploration with HCD Continuous Deployment and Post-Release Evaluation The Research Roadmap and the SAFe® Architectural Runway 15 Measuring Solution Performance Behavioral vs. Attitudinal Metrics Metrics Frameworks Objectives and Key Results 16 Human-Centered Agile Applied The People and The Idea Year 1 DIY Fly Gets off the Ground DIY Fly Creates New Products The Backlog Refinement (and Roadmapping) The Workflow DIY Fly Learns and Improves Years 2–3 Years 4+ Conclusion Recommended Reading Index