Designerʼs guide to Scrum

Where do designers fit into the Scrum process?

Exploring the concept of Agile UX, with advice on
improving designer-developer collaboration
When it comes to getting a product out to market,there are several
widespread frameworks that organizations use in order to create a fluid and
efficient workflow. One of those frameworks is the Scrum design process,
which is part of the popular Agile methodology.

We know what youʼre thinking. Scrum and Agile – thatʼs developer stuff,
right? After all, Agile is an iterative software development approach used to
launch products. Why should we care?

The reality is as designers we have to understand Agile and Scrum

because itʼs likely weʼre going to be working in organizations that use that
methodology. 71% of organizations report using agile approaches for their
projects so it is in any designerʼs best interest to get to grips with the
approach.

Many companies have found success with Scrum, especially when it comes
to changing the way they work and how they get things done. A report by
PwC on Agile Project Delivery Confidence found that Agile projects are 28%
more successful than traditional projects.

With so many organizations using the scrum framework in their own way,
including Justinmind, weʼre going to give a run down on all things Scrum
and how UX and UI designers alike can get the most out of the
methodology.

Get on top of Scrum with a little prototyping.

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What is the Scrum framework?

The Scrum Guide defines the Scrum framework as a way to manage work
on complex products. The foundation of Scrum is empirical, which is to say
that any knowledge gained comes from experience and decisions are made
based on what is already known.

“Experience is the best teacher, and the scrum cycle is designed to

provide you with multiple opportunities to receive feedback—from
customers, from the team, from the market—and to learn from it.” –
Chris Sims, “Scrum: a Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction”.

Take a look at how we applied Scrum to our own website design process.

What is Scrum used for?

There are numerous reasons why a team would use Scrum. Mainly, it helps
teams to:

V. Identify and understand viable markets, tech and product capabilities

W. Develop products and make enhancements
X. Release products and enhancements
Z. Develop and sustain operational environments for product use
[. Sustain and renew products

The Scrum team makeup

A typical Scrum team will consist of 3 elements:

A Product Owner
A Scrum Master
A Development Team

The Product Owner deals with delegating tasks, prioritizing tasks to achieve
goals, optimizing the value of the work of the Development Team and
ensuring that all tasks are clear to everyone.
Image credit: Mendix

The Development Team are those involved in delivering the tasks delegated
by the Product Owner. Scrum makes no distinction between someone
involved in marketing and a developer – theyʼre all part of the Development
Team. The Development Team is self-organizing and cross-functional.

The Scrum Master is someone who advocates for Scrum, the Scrum guide
and helping individuals in a team understand the theory, rules and values of
Scrum. They serve the Product Owner, Development Team and the
organization at large.

A Scrum workflow

A typical Scrum scenario might go something like this: John, the Product
Owner at a SaaS organization, has to develop a new app. First, John will
gather the requirements by looking into use-cases and discussing with
other members of the team including engineers and stakeholders to get
idea of the project scope.
Then after John has collated all the necessary information, heʼll start to put
tasks into a backlog. The backlog is where all tasks (or user stories) which
pertain to a particular development cycle live. John will prioritize these user
stories and estimate how long they will take.

Any large, high-level requirements will be broken down into smaller more
manageable user stories. Then once John has done this, heʼll be ready to
create the sprint. The sprint is simply an iteration, a basic unit of
development in the Scrum. The duration of the sprint is fixed in advance and
can last between 1 week to 1 month.

The reason for short sprints is to be able to respond to any unforeseen

changes that could impact the team and/or product.

If youʼre in a 2 week sprint and developing an iPhone app and suddenly

iPhone X is released, your Product Owner shouldnʼt have too many
problems reconfiguring the backlog and re-prioritize tasks. This is what is
known as a pivot and is what makes Agile methodology effective – being
able to respond to any sudden changes in circumstance.

Design awesome iPhoneX prototypes with Justinmind

The Sprint Planning Session is where teams can ask questions, clarify
points and discuss whether or not they have the capacity to do the tasks
outlined by the Product Owner. Together the teams will commit to complete
X number of user stories in a given sprint.

Scrum day to day: how to make it work

Development teams need to work quickly and fast. In other words, they
need to be agile. Because market changes can happen without warning,
teams have to be able to respond to these changes.

During the sprint, the team will have a daily scrum meeting where they
outline what has been achieved so far, what isnʼt going as planned and any
new information that may be relevant to the sprint at hand.

The sprint concludes with John talking to the Scrum Master about what has
worked and what hasnʼt worked in the sprint.

In brief, the Scrum process will look like this:

Sprint planning – outlining whatʼs going in the spring

Daily stand-up – a quick meeting for the team to get in sync
Sprint demo – a sharing meeting to show whatʼs been shipped
Sprint retrospective – a review of the good, the bad and the ugly of the
sprint.

Design and the Scrum process

Since a sprint will focus on the creation and implementation of a product,

which requires extensive coding, you might be wondering how can design
and development work hand in hand using Scrum? Wouldnʼt they need to
have all the UI assets and information before they can code?

To continue our example: the Product Owner, John, will have created user
stories for the developers on the team. If one of those user stories is ‘create
login pageʼ then the developers will need to have all the requirements and
assets like mockups and prototypes needed for those particular user
stories.
That means the UX design work has to be completed before the sprint
begins.

To get around this conundrum, UI and UX design should work ahead of any
sprint cycle. Before a developer begins to work on a user story, that user
story has to be designed, tested, and researched weeks if not months in
advance.

If the developer doesnʼt have all of this information at their disposal, itʼs
unlikely that theyʼll be able to complete the work in a 2 week or 4 week
sprint.

UX and UI designers have their own workflow, which is made up of:

Gathering requirements
Brainstorming and ideation
Research
Wireframing and prototyping
Testing

The sprint relies on these elements being done in advance and as a result
they canʼt be done concurrently with development.

Pixel-perfect design-development hand-off with

Justinmind
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Where can design fit into the Scrum process?

It can be tricky to find out where design fits into the Scrum process. The
debate rages on as to whether or not design should even be incorporated
into Agile sprints. Thankfully, there are a few different work arounds which
may or may not work. It ultimately comes down to what kind of organization
youʼre in.
As already mentioned, the UI/UX work should ideally be done before a
sprint begins. This doesnʼt mean designers are free from that sprint,
however.

If a developer needs clarification on a design for a user story theyʼre working

on then the designer should stop their work on the next sprint and focus on
the current sprint. In this way, the designer is both looking ahead and
staying focused on the present. Likewise, itʼs a good rule of thumb to have a
developer in the meeting when UX deliverables are being discussed so that
they can review and give their insight.

3 ways to combine design thinking with Scrum

UX design and Scrum may not be a marriage made in heaven. Both are
needed in organizations which aim to create successful products with
awesome user experiences. Since Scrum can be suffocating for a design
team, it would make sense for UI/UX designers to introduce design thinking
into the mix with Agile methodology.

Even though theyʼre distinct schools of thought, they share many

commonalities such as collaboration and empowering people to do what
they do best, in the most efficient way. Tom Roach, UX designer at IBM,
gives a run down of how they get combined at IBM.

Google Design Sprint

Google has a design sprint kit which can be used to bring a design thinking
framework into your Scrum process. There are templates and frequently
asked questions to give you an idea of how to get started. A Scrum Master
will be able to get their head around the concepts of the design sprint in no
time.
Image credit: Lefty Group

Lean UX

Thereʼs also the lean UX approach. Lean UX is focused on the experience

under design and not so much on deliverables. Lean UX mimics the same
life cycles of a traditional Agile approach but is centered around design. Itʼs
also collaborative at heart and cross-functional.

The lean UX approach can be surmised as “think, make, check”. This loop is
a quick way of saying that you brainstorm and ideate before moving onto
prototyping and wireframing to then iterate and test. This approach can be
done before, during and after you have a minimum viable product.

Agile UX

69% of UX practitioners are using an Agile approach. Even though Agile is

difficult to marry with UX design, itʼs not impossible.

NNGroup found that Agile UX works best when management values user
experience design and when UX designers show leadership. That requires a
looser process that isnʼt too strict and a organizational understanding of UX
and the value it brings.

Agile UX brings agility to UX design and by bringing UX design to Agile, it

makes the process more flexible by allowing design to work on sprints in
advance. Agile UX wonʼt work if you have a Scrum Master whoʼs too stuck in
the rulebook.

For Scrum and UX design to work well itʼs important to:

Have design work on sprints in advance

Plan adequately
Pick a method thatʼs adaptable and a Scrum Master who is open to
change
Have a developer present during UX deliverable discussions

Conclusion

Bringing together Agile methods and design thinking might not be the
easiest task. But companies which fully embrace the value of design
thinking with the efficacy of Scrum should aim to create a system that works
for their organization and is tailored to their teamʼs needs and values.