When diving in an agile approach, a design team alongside other teams, work in synergy for product or software development.
Unlike having that one-time red carpet launch, working with an agile team on a lean process is all about adapting and responding to minuscule changes. Work is delivered in small yet efficient increments to provide quick and consumable value.
The Art and Science of Getting Agile
This is a collaborative, adaptive, and convenient approach because the “launch” isn’t considered as consummation but instead a continuous buildup phase.
With that in mind, the plans and results are evaluated consistently to determine if and when adjustments are necessary. Requirements, plans, and results are evaluated continuously so teams have a natural mechanism for responding to change quickly.
While a design team may feel quite lost during paradigm shifts, Lean UX can help maintain the pace and solve that dilemma. Design Thinking together with other design methods such as Agile Development can get encroached into the whole “agile” concept or philosophy with the use of the Lean UX method that ensures the delivery of value for customers isn’t compromised one bit.
Although Lean UX has been viewed as a complex buzzword the entire process, however complex, has real and tangible value for many businesses. It’s even simpler than how it’s perceived.
Design isn’t just about results. It’s the entire development process of understanding semantics, brands, messaging, customer behavior, and all of these data involved.
Groups that Lean UX Caters To
Lean UX isn’t just exclusive for designers but this will also be value-packed for teams who get together to collaborate on product design and development. While the process may start from the designers, this is a concept that should be embraced and cultivated by the entire team.
Designers and Teams. This is for design teams who are just starting out in their Agile transformative journey or those who are already in the process of Agile development.
Brands, Startups, & Businesses. For brands, startup entrepreneurs, or businesses that are overwhelmed with transitions from a Waterfall to an Agile development process, Lean UX is for you.
This helps the design to become more versatile and less restrictive because it’s not too generic or prescriptive. This leaves leeway for creative or even disruptive flair.
Business & Industry Leaders. If you are a CEO, startup founder, or business leader and would want to traverse or move your brand from point A to B then you would realize the importance of utilizing the Lean UX process in the decision-making process.
What is Lean UX All About?
Customer Feedback. Customer feedback is now more important than ever to enable the team to make radical changes or quick decisions imperative to solving pain points in order to improve products and deliver changes that your customers want.
Agile Development. Basically, Lean UX integrates the use of Agile development or its iterative and delivery process to streamline and enhance the customer experience.
This process enables the entire team to fuse together when it comes to critical areas in the experimental stage such as technical feasibility analysis, risk assessment, product analysis, and design.
Agile design isn’t the endpoint but just an important step or approach to take in product design and development to get into a more feasible state.
Using the Lean UX Canvas – Providing Customer Solutions
With all of the information above, you now have to come to terms with how to use Lean UX.
Identifying Points. Everything starts with identifying business pain points. With the use of a Lean UX canvas, you can now start to determine problems that a business has. Also, think about the customer profile that has these problems.
Identify how you can validate the solutions by the use of specific metrics in measuring results. Use customer journey mapping, empathy maps, and prototype personas to know which customer needs are valid and viable.
Devise Solutions. With all of these outlined, your team can perform a cross-functional Design Studio or ideation of a scenario to come up with different solutions.
This is the time to get involved and influence the product decision-making process. The Lean process should by now provide you different testable hypotheses or scenarios that could provide you assumptions as well as the potential solutions on solving a business pain point.
Evaluate & Choose Hypotheses. Identify your riskiest hypothesis and test it out or run different experiments to either validate or negate these assumptions.
Lean UX experiments can simply be in the form of newsletter signup. This helps you understand whether they would really want an email newsletter in the first place.
If they do, then this information can be used to create a list of initial customers and create content and value that applies to the customer persona.
Integrating Lean UX
Team Members. It’s at the core of every business to start with the right team. This is the ethos of a Lean UX process to ensure that the team is composed of diverse personalities with varied backgrounds, expertise, interests, and experiences. It is also important to get people who have that shared drive, goal, and understanding of disciplines.
Team Size. The size of the team is also important. It is best to keep your team small. A team size of 2 to 6 people would be ideal. A maximum of 12 people is recommended. There are teams that are very large which isn’t feasible if you want to keep it close-knit and effective.
Scaling your team is easier when you start with being effective at a small number. You have to concentrate on working with a small team before you can add sub-teams or expand your network. The idea here is that a smaller team would be able to communicate and solve problems quickly rather than working with a large network of people.
Team Diversity. A diverse team coming from different countries, sexes, or orientations would give you a vantage point in the business.
Team Vision. The right team would always have the customer needs in mind. It’s important that there are no gurus or ninjas on it but equally ambitious minds or a dedicated team who are set to make an impact and provide solutions to customer problems.
In order to fully utilize the power of Lean UX, your outcomes must be measurable and so a slow yet steady process is important to make sure that the design and build phase is efficient. The focus here is on the outcomes and not on the processes of how it’s done.
Functionality Beyond Traditional UX Design
Dealing With Errors. Mistakes are crucial at this point to learn how you can validate assumptions with usability testing that can provide you the metrics needed to determine if your design has provided a solution to the impending problem.
Slow But Sure. Slow progress on your design vision is important to follow a lean methodology. While it could take some time, these small steps or that “build” protocol enable you to process and develop a good product design with a higher value rather than rushing things and come up with a product that doesn’t keep up with expectations.
Ensuring Customer Value. Implementing Lean UX is different from the traditional approach to UX design. This shift enables the implementation of new designs in a more coordinated and organized pathway to ensure a continuous flow of consumer value.
This iterative process together with the right tools and infrastructure will help you take action today. Lean methodology is all about functionality at the bare minimum that defines success on a benefit-driven platform.
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Sources:
Photos from Canva
https://www.justinmind.com/blog/complete-guide-to-lean-ux/
https://medium.com/design-warp/integrating-a-lean-ux-process-7c94b2f3be8f
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