PROCESS
Today we live in a world of every changing technology and software development needs to keep up. The days of long “waterfall” software cycles won’t satisfy customers demand and waiting to the end of that cycle to see if it’s the “right thing” is a failed process.
We need to validate our assumptions much faster, in a matter of days and weeks not months or years.
Every company I have worked for has an established process, so I would expect to come in and start there, but over time, working with the team, look for opportunities to make the process better.
I want the teams to be successful so whether it's adding new software or removing an outdated process, I'll constantly striving to streamline the process.
team dynamics
Over my career I’ve worked in many different team structures, but the ones that were most successful were where I worked within a small POD with my product and engineering partners.
Getting teams working together is the first step. Remove the silos between design, product and engineering will make magic happen.
Below's info-graphic describes what I consider the best structure for a team. This allows each member to bring their expertise to create well-balanced solutions.
Design shouldn’t be just “wire-framing monkeys” for product and engineers. We must have an equal seat at the table; we’re the ones that bring the customer voice to help solve business problems.
process
Projects and life are way too fluid, so teams need a process that can be fluid with them.
discovery & framing
D&F is becoming a process by which teams figure out what to build. The old top-down approach is outdated and unsuccessful, what I Iike about this approach, it gives teams the flexibility to explore what customers truly want.
This doesn’t discount those times when the company wants to explore new industry leading feature. D&F is a perfect process to apply something new continually evolving an existing feature.
Ultimately D&F is about building empathy for the customer while they use our products.
Scoping
Scoping allows the team to get a shared understanding about the goals, business requirements, product and technology.Tasks you may find at this step are:
Goal setting
Risks & Mitigation
Personas
Journey maps
Tech stack
Journey Maps are a great way to get everyone aligned with the current customer journey. This should be frequently updated with changes.
discovery
Discovery lets the team gain a deeper understanding of the business and customer problem, users and competitive landscape.
Tasks you may find at this step are:
Goal & objectives
Assumptions
Problem statements
Competitive Analysis
Insights
Exploratory User Research
framing
Framing allows the team to explore a variety of solutions and makes priority decisions about features for the product.
Tasks you may find at this step are:
Product vision
Goals + Metrics
Scenarios
Design Studio
Wireframes
Prototypes
Interviews
iterate + learn
Iterate and learn is to reduce the risk by prioritized features based upon evidence through tested prototypes.
Tasks you may find at this step are:
Lean testing
Prototypes
A/B testing
Continuous validation
Usability testing
Prototypes of all fidelity can bring great insights, but in my experience high-fidelity prototypes are the best for the valuable feedback.
delivery
You should be ready to delivery your MVP which will allow for continuous learning with real users. An MVP should be the smallest feature to allow you to learn and grow from.
Tasks you may find at this step are:
Lean testing
Metrics analysis
A/B testing
Continuous validation
Prototypes of all fidelity can bring great insights, but in my experience high-fidelity prototypes are the best for the valuable feedback.
These core steps may not be the only ones designers go through to design solutions. Each product they work on could look a little different from the last, but that’s OK.
Ultimately, you want to learn: "Are we building the right thing?" and “Are we building the thing right?”