Full-Day Training Course

Many development teams are adopting Agile and Lean methodologies, but don’t know how to effectively incorporate user-centered design and user experience (UX) best practices into the process. This tutorial provides practical insight, whether you are new to Agile or Lean methodologies, or trying to get more out of them.

Unlike other Agile courses taught from the Engineering or Development perspective, this course is taught by leading User Experience experts to shed light on a different perspective and lessons learned.

What You’ll Learn

• Identify where user experience and Agile/Lean activities are most synergistic
• Design from epics, themes and similar high-level requirement data
• Keep an eye on the larger picture
• Break down and communicate designs for execution/development
• Choose the best user testing methods and appropriately pace activities against sprints
• Create user experience criteria for evaluating sprint/release quality
• Incorporate user test findings and other user experience issues into backlogs/feature lists

Course Outline

• Introduction to Agile & UX:
  • Agile/Lean principles
  • User-Centered Design principles
  • Agile vs. Waterfall
  • Roles & responsibilities in Agile
• Agile lifecycle and UX activities:
  • Why UX people should LOVE Agile/Lean methods (yes, really)
  • Challenges of Agile for UX
  • Challenges of UX and Agile for Development
  • Natural modes for UX interaction with Agile teams
  • Managing sprints to your advantage
• Definition & Planning:
  • UX role and pacing in Definition
  • Waterfall requirements with Agile execution
  • Agile requirements and Agile execution
  • UX voice in Agile planning
• Design & Prototyping for Agile/Lean Execution:
  • Designing from Epics and Themes – you’re kidding, right?
  • How to keep an eye on the Big Picture
  • Prototyping for efficiency, reuse and easy breakdown by Development
  • The importance of interaction design patterns
  • Buddy design
• User Testing:
  • Choosing the right user testing techniques for different points in the Agile process
  • Pacing user research and testing against sprints
  • How to track and prioritize findings from user testing
• UX Quality
  • Judging UX quality in an Agile world
  • Creating effective UX quality criteria
  • Ensuring UX issues are part of the quality process
  • Practicing “Design QA” and incorporating it into general quality processes
• Communication
  • Natural pit stops in Agile for UX communication
  • “Show and Tell” Epics – previewing designs with Development
  • Breaking down designs in the context of epics, user stories, etc.
  • Communication obstacles with common Agile tools
  • Bringing it all together – release cycle case study
• This course also includes:
  • Interactive exercises
  • Q&A

Instructors
Lynn Pausic
Principal, Expero Inc. 

Dr. John Morkes
Principal, Expero Inc. 

Who Should Attend

Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Product Managers, Business Analysts, Technical Team Leads, Project Managers, Program Managers, Developers, Interaction Designers, Information Architects, Usability Specialists, User Researchers, Executive Management with oversight responsibility, and anyone interested in incorporating user-centered practices into an Agile development process.

Schedule:

       8:30am  - 9am: Coffee 

                     9am: Course begins

10:30am  - 10:45am: Morning Break

     12pm - 12:30pm: Lunch Break (lunch provided)

    2:30pm - 2:45pm: Afternoon Break

                      5pm: Q&A/Wrap up

This course includes:

• Interactive exercises
• All participants receive a copy of the course materials