assessing agility

[dina salah]

Hi,
I am aware of the wide spectrum of proposals, techniques, approaches for improving agile usability, however, i believe that most of the assessements were ancedotal.
If anyone has a different opinion kindly share it.
What i am asking about is:
Among all the suggestions to achieve agile usability, how can u prove that your suggested method is better than any other suggested method?Is it through user/ customer satisfaction? Better Developement team productivity? More Agility? ....
And again how do u backup your opinion?
Cheers,
Dina




     

[William Pietri]

dina salah wrote:
> What i am asking about is:
> Among all the suggestions to achieve agile usability, how can u prove
> that your suggested method is better than any other suggested
> method?Is it through user/ customer satisfaction? Better Developement
> team productivity? More Agility? ....
> And again how do u backup your opinion?

Could you say more about your goal in asking those questions?

I have seen a lot of teams, and I don't think I've ever seen one where a
team has been helped by focusing on proving the absolute superiority of
one method or another.

If you are working as a team, releasing at least weekly, and doing
regular retrospectives, you will find that most weeks are better than
the one that came before. Each team seems to find their own particular
definition of "better", and that definition changes over time.

In that context, the way that teams decide what methods are best for
their circumstances is generally through trying them out and seeing what
works. Is that an option for you?


William


--
William Pietri - william@... - [phone]
Agile consulting, coaching, and development: http://www.scissor.com/
We'd love feedback on our new blog: http://agilefocus.com/

[Austin Govella]

On Jul 9, 2009, at 10:54 AM, dina salah wrote:
> Among all the suggestions to achieve agile usability, how can u  
> prove that your suggested method is better than any other suggested  
> method?Is it through user/ customer satisfaction? Better  
> Developement team productivity? More Agility? ....

Dina,

The effectiveness of any given method for any project is largely  
driven by the organization's design literacy. And then it's also  
largely driven by the organization's culture. And then it's also  
driven by the practitioner's political savvy and ability to evangelize.

There is no best method, and I don't think you could actually measure  
one. There are only better methods for different circumstances which  
is why anecdotes and sharing our experiences is so important. Proper  
case studies might be better, but sharing experiences may be the only  
way to teach these skills.





--
Austin Govella
User Experience

Work: http://www.grafofini.com
Blog: http://www.thinkingandmaking.com
Book: http://www.blueprintsfortheweb.com

austin@...
215-240-1265

Upcoming speaking engagements:

1. JUL 1: Agile+UX - collaboration in the wild
Panel and presentation at UX Austin on strategies for agile UX -  
Austin, TX

2. JUL 21: Liquid user experience
Presentation at Dallas UPA on designing content, navigation, and  
interactions for highly dynamic sites - Dallas, TX

[Adrian Howard]

On 12 Jul 2009, at 23:23, Austin Govella wrote:

> On Jul 9, 2009, at 10:54 AM, dina salah wrote:
>> Among all the suggestions to achieve agile usability, how can u
>> prove that your suggested method is better than any other suggested
>> method?Is it through user/ customer satisfaction? Better
>> Developement team productivity? More Agility? ....
>
> Dina,
>
> The effectiveness of any given method for any project is largely
> driven by the organization's design literacy. And then it's also
> largely driven by the organization's culture. And then it's also
> driven by the practitioner's political savvy and ability to  
> evangelize.

... and type of project, and kind of problem, and the people on the  
team and ...

> There is no best method, and I don't think you could actually measure
> one. There are only better methods for different circumstances which
> is why anecdotes and sharing our experiences is so important. Proper
> case studies might be better, but sharing experiences may be the only
> way to teach these skills.

I'm also beginning to think that there is a pattern language evolving,  
with context and pressures that make particular techniques more or  
less applicable. Possibly just in my head of course :-)

For example I'm going to be using very different techniques if I have:
a) an on-site Customer (in the XP sense) in the team room full time  
who is also an end-user
b) an off-site Customer (in the XP sense) who isn't an end-user at all

Adrian

--
http://quietstars.com  -  twitter.com/adrianh  -  delicious.com/adrianh

[Anders Ramsay]

Hi Dina,

As William and others said, talking about a "best" method is probably
not that fruitful.  Similar to the saying about politics, all methods
are local.  The method or process that is ideal for your team may not
be ideal for another team.  At the same time, there are definitely
agile usability patterns that are emerging, but even in those cases,
when getting into specific methods and activities, I'd say they are
likely to remain anecdotal and not really become formal best-practice
patterns (i.e.it works for most teams, most of the time) until having
been tested in ways similar to the patterns that became Scrum, which
has been used in thousands of projects since being introduced in '96.
-Anders


On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 11:54 AM, dina salah<dina_salah_eldin@...> wrote:

>
>
> Hi,
> I am aware of the wide spectrum of proposals, techniques, approaches for
> improving agile usability, however, i believe that most of the assessements
> were ancedotal.
> If anyone has a different opinion kindly share it.
> What i am asking about is:
> Among all the suggestions to achieve agile usability, how can u prove that
> your suggested method is better than any other suggested method?Is it
> through user/ customer satisfaction? Better Developement team productivity?
> More Agility? ....
> And again how do u backup your opinion?
> Cheers,
> Dina
>
>
>

[Jeremy Kriegel]

I think there is an assumption in the prior comments that I'd like to call
out. It is that you and your team are familiar with UX practices as used in
non-agile environments. If you are, then it is a case of how to adapt what
you know or learn new techniques that will benefit your situation.
If, however, you are new to UX in general, you might need to start by
learning some of the baseline UX practices. Many of the things that worked
outside of agile will still work inside of agile. They may just need to be
tweaked in their execution or timing.

Jeff Patton has put together a fairly generic 2 week process that will cover
the UX bases in an agile way. If you need a place to start, consider it.
Once you have a baseline, his or your own, you can start evolving it to meet
your specific needs. I can't find a blog post where he spells it out, but
this one is close (
http://www.agileproductdesign.com/blog/emerging_best_agile_ux_practice.html).
You may just need to go to one of his workshops, however, if you digest most
of his writings, you'll have a good sense for what he will present.

-jer
www.methodsansmadness.com

"Be well, do good work & keep in touch."
    - Garrison Keillor


On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 1:14 PM, Anders Ramsay <andersr@...> wrote:

>
>
> Hi Dina,
>
> As William and others said, talking about a "best" method is probably
> not that fruitful. Similar to the saying about politics, all methods
> are local. The method or process that is ideal for your team may not
> be ideal for another team. At the same time, there are definitely
> agile usability patterns that are emerging, but even in those cases,
> when getting into specific methods and activities, I'd say they are
> likely to remain anecdotal and not really become formal best-practice
> patterns (i.e.it works for most teams, most of the time) until having
> been tested in ways similar to the patterns that became Scrum, which
> has been used in thousands of projects since being introduced in '96.
> -Anders
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 11:54 AM, dina salah<dina_salah_eldin@...<dina_salah_eldin%40yahoo.com>>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> > I am aware of the wide spectrum of proposals, techniques, approaches for
> > improving agile usability, however, i believe that most of the
> assessements
> > were ancedotal.
> > If anyone has a different opinion kindly share it.
> > What i am asking about is:
> > Among all the suggestions to achieve agile usability, how can u prove
> that
> > your suggested method is better than any other suggested method?Is it
> > through user/ customer satisfaction? Better Developement team
> productivity?
> > More Agility? ....
> > And again how do u backup your opinion?
> > Cheers,
> > Dina
> >
> >
> >
>
>  
>