What are Lean-Agile Methodologies, and Why Do They Matter?
Lean-Agile technique is built on the core principles of both Agile and Lean development processes. Let’s examine what Agile and Lean development methodologies actually mean.
Agile Methodology: The agile methodology combines a number of principles and ideas to advance more effective methods of software development, including a focus on people and interactions, capable technology, customer collaboration, and accepting change.
Lean Product Development (LPD): The goal of the LPD is to address issues with product development, such as a lack of innovation. Its methodology is centered on shortening the lengthy development cycles and cutting the otherwise expensive development and production costs. Businesses that employ an LPD methodology are better equipped to continuously develop and iterate.
The principles of the two strategies are then combined by lean-agile methodologies. Workflow, innovation, and a never-ending quest for perfection are highlighted. Additionally, respect for people and cultures is emphasized. Since the implementation and application of these methodologies in product and platform engineering, from marketing and sales divisions to teams in human resources, accounting, purchasing, and other areas, have been incredibly successful, many businesses are eager to scale them across their organizations on a larger scale.
Lean-Agile technique was eventually combined to produce the mindset that has come to be known as the Lean-Agile Mindset. The greatest way to achieve quicker outcomes while retaining the highest level of delivery is by combining lean and agile.
What is Lean UX?
Most product teams must examine a number of design possibilities before selecting the best one since they are typically unaware of the optimal answer at the beginning of the design process.
The fundamental tenet of lean user experience is to establish a hypothesis and test it before committing to its realization.
Results are given priority over deliveries in lean UX. In order to test the assumptions and hypotheses of the product/service team, UX designers execute guerrilla-style user testing and experimenting on minimal viable product (MVP) designs.
Fostering a culture of continuous learning is a must for adopting Lean UX. The process of designing products is driven by the search for better solutions, which also inspires the team working on the products.
Lean UX principles include:
- Cross-functional teams (work in teams with varied skill sets),
- Problem-focused teams (don’t just create features, solve problems),
- Producing the least possible waste (eliminating all work that doesn’t get your team closer to your expected outcome), and
- A culture of continuous discovery and improvement.
What is Agile UX?
Agile UX seeks to integrate UX approach with agile software development teams. Since UX and design were not initially considered to be a part of agile, it was not originally designed to. The compatibility of the various approaches is a hot topic in the area of user experience. Agile UX makes an effort to put into practice an iterative design and improvement approach for features developed through collaboration and the management of user feedback.
- Realistic Timelines: Keep track of the project timelines. Divide the tasks into sprints & follow strict deadlines.
- Functional Designs in All Phases: Make sure that at the conclusion of each sprint, an interactive prototype is created. This way, you can ensure that your design is incremental and iterative and undergoes several phases before the final version is made public.
- Responding to Change: Make sure that designers remain aware of users’ evolving needs and make an effort to address them with each sprint.
- Adaptable and Flexible Designs: The designers must have the vision to ensure that the design is adaptable enough to accommodate future modifications. This reduces the amount of time and resources needed to launch an update.
- Effective Team Communication: Teams should always keep lines of communication open. Users or customers play a significant role in communication and collaboration. Customer input must constantly be taken into account.
- User Feedback at All Levels: Users can interact with the design in a real-world setting following each sprint. This allows the designers to receive input regularly and comprehend the audience’s problems.
- Constant Testing: Agile UX is an iterative methodology that cannot function without ongoing testing and analysis. The defects in a prototype are then exposed, enabling the designers to take corrective action.
Lean UX vs Agile UX – Difference Between the Two
Lean UX focuses on the design phase of the software development process while Agile UX integrates the UX design process into Agile methodologies.
The main difference between lean and agile is that agile optimizes development processes while lean has typically been linked with manufacturing process optimization. However, considering how modern teams have applied lean principles in their development work, this distinction is no longer important.
Take into account how lean prioritizes a continuous process free of wastes & bottlenecks. The “continuous everything” methodology employed by many DevOps teams can be effectively compared to this. When testing and deployment include as much beneficial automation as is practical, things go more smoothly. Less room for error means fewer corrections need to be made later.
Lean UX vs Agile UX – Similarities between the two
Due to the overlap between lean and agile, many teams use a blended approach. Here are two examples of how they can combine:
- Lean and agile principles are applied to large enterprises through the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®). For instance, Kanban (a lean workflow organization system) may be used by SAFe® teams to develop systems at multiple organizational levels while also supporting agile development approaches at the team level through program increments and scrum.
- The Lean-Agile mindset combines Agile and Lean approaches to improve organizational agility. Respect for people and cultures, continuous workflow, innovation, and continual improvement are the four main pillars of the Lean-Agile Mindset, which incorporates both strategies.
How to Work With Developers in Tandem at Speed?
So far, we have a good understanding of what Lean UX and Agile UX are, as well as what a Lean-Agile methodology entails. It is extremely beneficial and advantageous for your organization as a whole to use a Lean-Agile methodology. A requirement of this methodology is that you involve developers and product owners at every stage of the design process.
You can set aside a day and make sure everyone shows up for user research sessions. Making usability testing a cooperative endeavor enables both sides to take part in the sessions and gain personal knowledge of its advantages. Having a front-row seat to these sessions may make developers and product owners more receptive to design decisions because it is difficult to argue against concrete data. The project gains from the team’s collective decision-making about design based on user data as opposed to depending on unproven assumptions. The notion that product owners, designers, and developers are all members of the same team and have the same goals should be emphasized time and again.
The gated-handoff waterfall process is collapsed by the creation of these varied teams. Earlier in the process, all pertinent disciplines are consulted for their perspectives on each concept. Cross-functional communication is encouraged, which boosts team productivity.
Together with the developers, you may fix problems quickly and avoid wasting any time. Additionally, it makes sure that every problem is solvable and controllable.
What Should Designers Know Before Using These Approaches?
As businesses have embraced Lean and Agile operating approaches, UX designers have encountered challenges when attempting to adapt their own human-centered design methodology to these methodologies. Lean & Agile UX are both impacted by these issues:
- One Team, One Dream: Agile and Lean can effectively incorporate the UX function if its value and importance are recognized. Since they have a direct impact on corporate culture, lean and agile thinking should be embedded into UX design system concepts. The executive level must demonstrate organizational design maturity in this situation. UX design must be treated equally in the methodology.
- Making Time for User Research: Because agile software development’s initial objectives were to build rapidly and efficiently, research is not usually expressly provided for. Several designers have made an effort to develop solutions to this by starting with a Sprint 0 that permits basic discovery work before development gets started. There has been considerable discussion about how the design team can operate at the correct pace to keep design work on schedule with development.
- Reaching the Apt Level of Documentation: The development of functional products is strongly emphasized rather than creating documentation in both the Lean and Agile approaches. For UX designers to investigate and create the product, specific design artefacts, such as information architecture (IA) diagrams or wireframes, are necessary. IA diagrams help product teams organize content so that consumers can find it and develop relevant content, whereas wireframes are used as a guidance during UI design. One solution to this issue is to concentrate on more basic kinds of documentation, like whiteboard sketches or paper prototypes.
- Learning the Language: As with every methodology, Agile and Lean each have their own terminology and conventions. Understanding Agile’s scrum, sprints, backlog, user stories, and epics will be useful to designers. Some of the basic concepts in Lean are assumptions, hypotheses, the minimal viable product (MVP), and pivots. Every task is built on the shared language and knowledge of the team.
Benefits of Participating in the Lean and Agile Design Strategy
The advantages of Lean-Agile techniques for businesses include:
- Shortened time to market
- Increased visibility and transparency of the implementation
- Lower risk and reduced expenses from testing early & often
- Enhanced capacity to handle ambiguous or changing requirements
- Improved collaboration and coordination between management, IT, and vendor teams
We at Worxwide Consulting are a UX design consulting firm. Our expert team of designers, UX researchers, and consultants can help you crack the code when it comes to leveraging and implementing the lean and agile methodology in your UX. Get in touch with us today and let our experts do the rest.
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