Lean UX Principles

Lean UXAgility through cross-functional collaborationLecture on principles

Chris BarklemLean UX Labs & Just UX

Congratulations!!Welcome to the very first Lean UX Lab meeting.

Mission Statement:

“Lean UX Lab is the Barcelona based group for passionate people who are interested in developing and implementing Lean UX processes. The group not only applies the lean UX approach, it is governed by its ethos, which is to sustain an environment of innovation, experimentation, agility and feedback.”

What are principles?“Inspired by Lean Startup and Agile Development theories, it’s the practice of bringing the true nature of a product to light faster, in a collaborative, cross-functional way with less emphasis on deliverables and greater focus on a shared understanding of the actual experience being designed.”

Jeff Gothelf

What are principles?Wikipedia:

“A principle is a law or rule that has to be, or usually is to be followed, or can be desirably followed, or is an inevitable consequence of something, such as the laws observed in nature or the way that a system is constructed.”

Principle:

• Law• Rule• Usually followed

What is a process?Google:

“a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.”

Lean UX Principles• Cross-Functional Teams• Small, Dedicated, Colocated• Progress = Outcomes, Not Output• Problem-Focused Teams• Removing Waste• Small Batch Size• Continuous Discovery• GOOB: The New User-Centricity

• Shared Understanding• Anti-Pattern: Rockstars, Gurus, and Ninjas• Externalizing Your Work• Making over Analysis• Learning over Growth• Permission to Fail• Getting Out of the Deliverables Business

TeamsCross-functional• Engineers

• Developers

• Project Managers

• UI Designers

• UX Designers

• Content Architects

• Marketing

• QA

• Support

Or the entire startup team if its less than 11 people.

TeamsWhy Cross-functional• It removes the need for documented handover

• All members gain empathy and insight about:• Who the solution is for• Their needs• Their environment• Their pain points

• The solution is shared, based on collaboration by all minds, including the users

TeamsSmall, Dedicated, Colocated• No more than 10 people.

• Dedicated: Continuous involvement from day one until the end of the engagement.

• Without side projects.

Why?• Communication

• Focus

• Camaraderie

Progress = Outcomes, NOT OUTPUT• Team is assigned an outcome and empowered to find the solution.

• Speculating on which features meet desired business outcomes, is speculation.

• Features are as beneficial as they are harmful.

Problem-Focused Teams• Assign the team a business goal to solve

• Results in:• Better designed solutions• Deeper sense of team pride• Team feels ownership of the solution

Remove Waste• Remove everything that doesn’t lead to the ultimate goal or improve outcome.

• If it doesn’t contribute to that its considered waste and removed from the process

Why?• Teams resources are limited

• Waste is a distraction

• Leaner = faster, which leads to better levels of focus on the duration of the project

Small Batch Sizes• Make only the number you need, increases the level of quality

• Building and designing to the level required means the team can move quickly to the point where they begin to get real feedback from the users.

• Big building requires large upfront design, which leads to a natural waterfall

Continuous DiscoveryHow?• Engaging the customer during the design and development process.

• Use regular quantitive and qualitative feedback.

• Understand what the customer is doing with your product while your building it.

• Validate new ideas with real customers.

• All team members active in research and testing (gaining empathy).

GOOB: The New User-CentricityGet Out Of The Building

Why?Ultimately, the success or failure of your product isn’t the team’s decision – it’s the customers.

The sooner you listen the sooner you know if you have an idea which is ready to be built.

Shared Understanding• It is the collective knowledge of the team that builds up over time as the team works together.

• It’s a rich collective understanding of the space (market), the product and the customer.

Anti-Pattern: Rockstars, Gurus, and Ninjas• Rockstars, Gurus, Ninjas and other elite experts of their craft break down team cohesion and eschew

collaboration.

• When collaboration breaks down you lose the environment you need to create the shared understanding that allows you to move forward effectively.

Externalizing Your Work• Externalizing means getting your work out of your head, off the computer and into public view.

• This can be done by using whiteboards, stickynotes (postits), foam boards, artifact walls, printouts or sketches.

Why?• Lets everybody see where the team stands, leading to a deeper shared understanding.

• It creates a flow of information across the team members.

• It inspires new ideas built from the ideas being shared, even by those quiet team members.

Making over AnalysisLean UX values making over analysis.There is more value in creating a first version of an idea than spending half a day debating its merit.

Why?• You can’t answer questions in a conference room, you can only make assumptions.

• GOOB will answer those questions, or give you a place to openly get feedback.

Learning over GrowthLean UX values learning over growth.Until you know, with data, you should be focusing on learning not scaling your business of features.

Permission to Fail• To find the best solutions, you need to experiment with ideas.

• The best innovation teams are instructed to fail over 80% of the time.

• By failing you define the envelope of what is plausible and what is not.

• Experimentation breeds creativity.

• Creativity leads to innovation.

• Removing fear of failure leads to teams taking risks, which leads to big ideas.

Permission to FailDerek Silvers video on youtube is a must see.

His work on failing, focuses on these key points:

• If your failing your learning.

• Failing creates a growth mindset.

• It reminds you that everything is an experiment.

• It makes everything, just more fun.

Getting Out of the Deliverables Business• Move away from deliverables, towards outcomes.

• With increased cross-functional collaboration, stakeholders conversation becomes less about what artifact is being created and more about which outcome is being achieved.

Why?• Documents don’t solve customer problems – good products do.

• The team should be focused on what features have the biggest impact (outcome) on the customers.

• The quality of the product, can only be measured by the market’s reaction to it.

Summary• Cross-Functional Teams• Small, Dedicated, Colocated• Progress = Outcomes, Not Output• Problem-Focused Teams• Removing Waste• Small Batch Size• Continuous Discovery• GOOB: The New User-Centricity

• Shared Understanding• Anti-Pattern: Rockstars, Gurus, and Ninjas• Externalizing Your Work• Making over Analysis• Learning over Growth• Permission to Fail [ Experimentation ]• Getting Out of the Deliverables Business

End of theory, start of practice.

?Chris Barklem – jux.io / e: chris@jux.io / s: Christopher.barklem