2. Team Agenda— A real challenge
Our team had encountered a great number of challenges during our journey.
We followed the principles of Lean UX. According to Ries (as cited in Gothelf & Seiden, 2016), the Lean Startup relies on experimentation, rapid iterations and evolutionary processes. Only the essential artefacts are created, and it is crucial work in harmony with stakeholders. Through experimentation and measurement, this mindset focuses on validating assumptions as soon as possible, and consequently, avoiding the waste of time. We aimed the creation of an MVP (Minimal Viable Product), and we divided our team into Product Owner (PO) and Scrum Master.
As key Product Owner’s responsibilities, we can describe:
- Determine the vision and goals
- Manage the backlog list
- Prioritize steps
- Investigate issues and successes during the development
- Anticipate the user’s need
- Ensure that stakeholders agree with developers and vice-versa
- Evaluate and inspect the product through each iteration
The Scrum Master is the person that:
- Ensures that agile practices are implemented correctly
- Helps with possible obstacles that team members are facing
- Ascertains that everybody is committed to product success
One of our tools was Trello platform, to help us work collaboratively. We defined tasks and assigned the responsibility for them through cards. It can be checked in Figure 1.
Figure 1
As a group, we decided to have these roles in cycles of fortnight turns, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2
Initially, our meetings occurred on a daily basis, with the time set for 10 minutes. Posteriorly, being increased in more 5 minutes. It was defended as a way of keeping track of activities and having a quicker response to deviations on our course of actions. However, after 3 weeks, it showed inefficient, since in many of these meetings we did not have any progress to discuss.
Same can be said about the Gantt chart which after a few days, had shown complex to administrate, and as a consequence, abandoned. It might have happened because Trello did not offer an option to create a Gantt chart from cards that were already in use. Figure 3 shows an attempt to use it on our project.
Figure 3
The main milestones during our project:
- Define research methods
- Reduce the number of functions to develop further
- Prototype and its division with Figma
- Communication strategy
- Define how to test the prototype (channels to recruit people, for example)
- Tone of voice
- To change from NLU (Natural Language Understanding) concept to Quick-action buttons in the chat
- Screens in which it would appear without being obtrusive
- Scripts (Bot script, Surveys, Screener script, Interviews, Testing Sessions, SUS)
In order to achieve better communication, we created a diary of our meetings. This diary became a more reliable source for our decisions and discussions. The communication had a very important impact on the deliverables, and as soon as we established an easy channel to do it, our schedule improved significantly. It was clear to me that multiple channels create confusion.
Reference List:
7 Key Product Owner Responsibilities. (2020, June 11). Lucidchart Blog. https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/product-owner-roles-and-responsibilities
A Simple Introduction to Lean UX. (2021, January 2). The Interaction Design Foundation. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/a-simple-introduction-to-lean-ux
Gothelf, J., & Seiden, J. (2016). From Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams (2nd ed.). O’Reilly.
Greever, T. (2015). Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience (1st ed.). O’Reilly Media.
Shevat, A. (2017). Designing Bots: Creating Conversational Experiences (1st ed.). O’Reilly Media.
