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Sustainable Pace, Agile, and The Big Design Refactor

Lean UX NYC, 2013

Jonathan Berger, Pivotal Labs

1. Sustainable Pace

Call to arms

I see many

unhappy designers

designers feel

overwhelmed

wasn't agile supposed to be a

solution?

instead, designers feel

rushed

designers feel

disempowered

designers

billing model

options?

work harder

work

longer

asked to work at someone else's

tempo

this is an

unwinnable race

design culture

rock star

all nighters

design-school crit

expected to be right

expected to be perfect

sustainable pace

constant speed

empathy

call to arms

designers should adopt sustainable pace as a value

2. Agile

solution

problem

Why?

similar problems

instead of

designers coping with Agile

why aren't we asking

"How can Agile serve designers?"

3. Big Design Refactor

In the beginning...

There's a

visual design system

Then

the project goes Agile

Development solutions

I.N.V.E.S.T., small pieces


Design solutions

Malleable, never done, holistic

product iterates

degrades under the weight of a thousand tiny changes

designers have to play catch-up in a race they can't win

Understand and accept

this design-system degradation is an affordance of differently-sized design and development cycles

Agile Designers Prayer

Grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change

The courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference

Designers need not work at developers tempo

stay in-rhythm with development,
not on-pace

Communicate

keep an eye on the health of the graphic system

manage your design debt

How?

the balance shifts

raise the alarm

Design retro

Do systematic visual Design

What DOES THE BIG DESIGN REFACTOR look like?

Near the end of Big design refactor

Costs of delay

After the Big Design refactor

until the next refactor

“we’re ok for right now, but we’ll need a design refactor in the next 3-5 weeks”

...and the cycle repeats

work with the Big Design Refactor, not against it.

Call to Action

Call to Arms

Designers should recognize the rhythms and tempos of design and development.

Designers should look to agile as a solution, not a problem.

Designers should adopt sustainable pace as a value.

Thank You.