Toni Steimle
Toni Steimle

Agile, Lean and UX today

Toni Steimle UX Director, Head of Site Zürich

01.02.2019 • 8 minutes reading time

It is becoming more common for software to be created in cross-functional teams that combine concept, design and development. These teams use their knowledge of a range of areas and combine this with agile and lean working methods to lead their project towards success.

The following article analyzes exactly how agile and lean approaches impact user experience design.

Agile Product Development: The Approach

Agile development is based on two fundamental concepts:

To plan product increments, agile teams split up product functionality into “user stories” that can be used to create a product backlog. Each iteration is therefore the implementation of a user story from the product backlog.

Agile Development: Challenges for UX Designers

This agile concept was developed without any focus on user experience design. It is therefore usually difficult for UX Designers to integrate into agile teams. The following are the two most important reasons:

Agile Development and UX: Solutions

Cross-functional teams can, of course, still work together agilely, as there are practicable solutions for both challenges:

Example of a User Story Map
Example of a User Story Map

We were able to prove that these methods are suitable for even large projects in the Aviatar project with Lufthansa Technik, as we were able to use lean methods and work together with the customer in accordance with lean principles.

Aviatar: Collaborative Project Best Practice

The challenges of collaborative teamwork in large-scale projects are also subject of the workshops and talks of the UX Strategy Zurich 2019 conference. If you're curious, check out the conference program! We're looking forward to seeing you.

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