Visualizing the Lean UX and Agile process

An example of how to explain the processes through User Journey Map

I was working with a large Agile Team who were unfamiliar with the Lean UX Process. Since I had to have multiple conversations regarding similar level setting of the UX Lead role, it was practical to build a User Journey Map of a UX designer within an Agile Team. I used this User Journey Map during 1:1 conversations with Leadership, Architects, Product Owners, Business Analysts, Scrum Masters as well as group conversations with entire dev teams.

This turned out to be very effective and saved me at least 30 minutes per conversation and we were able to have much more constructive conversations. Below is a walkthrough of this journey map.

Epic Level

When a UX Lead works with Leadership regarding a new Epic or New Business Challenge there are a few approaches that can be used. Sometimes, we need to collaborate amongst business leadership, Architects, Program Managers to identify the problem and agree on common language to describe the problem. There are a few techniques that can be used such as: Customer Journey Maps (Current and Future State), Service Blueprints, Design Sprints. These techniques will help identify what additional research needs to be conducted to understand what is currently being done. Is there any current analytics that exist to help inform what is currently being done?

Feature and Story Level

After the Feature problem statement and high-level journey has been defined. The UX Lead works with Architects, Project Owners, and Business Analysts to collaborate on a general guidance of what will be included in the Acceptance Criteria of stories. The UX Lead may be building low fidelity designs to help make sure everyone is on the same page in terms of the direction of the feature. It may be identified that additional UX Research is needed. Potential users can give feedback on the low fidelity prototypes.

Stories During a Sprint Level

This process really depends on the makeup of the team. We may be using a dual track agile process. In other cases, designs are finalized at the beginning of the sprint through a collaboration with the developer(s) assigned to the story. In either cases, stories with their initial designs are discussed with the whole team since the acceptance criteria may change during backlog refinement discussions. Since there is work to finalize the design (with input from developers), the UX Designer should be considered a member of the agile team.

UAT and Production

Once stories are built and are in a UAT environment. We should conduct usability studies to test out our initial theories. Did what we theorize during our conversations at the feature and story level turn out to be true? Are there any glaring usability issues that need to be fixed before this gets into production?

Once the feature is in Production we should measure our hypothesis we set up at the feature & epic level. Are users actually as engaged as we theorized? If not why … did we solve the wrong problem? Not only should moderated and unmoderated usability studies be conducted but leadership should be looking at analytics as a point of discussion. From this research, what additional items need to be solved?