For those who are working in a software development environment, the word “Agile” is omnipresent. As UX / Service Designers in a product context, we get to struggle a lot with how Agile is applied in most organizations. Let’s talk about why the Agile & UX Design collaboration fails so frequently, and how to make it an Agile & UX Design love story.
对于在软件开发环境中工作的人来说，“敏捷”一词无处不在。 作为产品环境中的UX /服务设计人员，我们在如何将敏捷应用于大多数组织中时遇到了很多困难。 让我们谈谈为何敏捷与UX设计合作如此频繁地失败，以及如何使它成为敏捷与UX设计的爱情故事。
Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning: Agile is NOT a methodology or framework. It’s a set of values and principles recorded in the agile manifesto. On top, there are some process frameworks which use these key values.
让我们从一开始就直言不讳：敏捷不是方法论或框架。 这是敏捷宣言中记录的一组价值观和原则。 最重要的是，有一些使用这些关键值的过程框架。
The key Agile values
关键敏捷价值
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 个人与流程和工具之间的互动
- Working software over comprehensive documentation 通过全面的文档工作软件
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 客户合作而非合同谈判
- Responding to change over following a plan 响应计划变更
Scrum, Kanban, Lean and Extreme Programming are some of the most widely-used process frameworks out there. Scrum is maybe the most well-known one. It uses set events to structure the way the Scrum Team works. It says a lot about how to work, how to communicate inside the team and how to deliver working software.
Scrum，看板，精益和极限编程是其中最广泛使用的过程框架。 Scrum也许是最著名的。 它使用设置事件来构造Scrum团队的工作方式。 它说明了如何工作，如何在团队内部进行沟通以及如何交付有效的软件。
A lot of Agile software development efforts don’t work out for companies, often blaming the switch to Agile for the failure. In reality, this won’t solve any of the problems of those companies. Just “switching” to any methodology and calling yourself Agile won’t change a lot. The whole company has to embrace the change and all of it’s concequences. So where do those companies fail?
许多敏捷软件开发工作对公司而言并不奏效，常常将失败归咎于改用敏捷。 实际上，这无法解决这些公司的任何问题。 只是“切换”到任何方法并称自己为敏捷并不会改变太多。 整个公司都必须接受变化及其所有后果。 那么那些公司在哪里失败呢？
让我们使用这些值作为失败原因的指导 (Let’s use these values as a guide for why we fail)
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools A company which has a top-down leadership style will have enormous problems when trying to embrace Agile, because it’s broken at the core. Agile centers around trust, self-organized teams and continuous iteration. All of those haven’t been common sight in a top-down led company. Additionally, being self-organizing is something that a lot of people aren’t used to. They’re almost afraid of failing in anything, because in the past failing meant having to have a scary talk with a manger.
在流程和工具上的个人和互动一家具有自上而下的领导风格的公司在尝试采用敏捷时会遇到巨大的问题，因为它的核心是破裂的。 敏捷围绕信任，自组织团队和持续迭代而展开。 在自上而下领导的公司中，所有这些都不是常见的。 另外，自我组织是很多人不习惯的事情。 他们几乎害怕失败，因为过去失败意味着必须与经理进行可怕的谈话。
Working software over comprehensive documentation Defining and aligning business value is utterly complex in large organizations. Many stakeholders are included and a great deal of stakeholder management is needed to get everyone aligned. If there are no coherent company vision and customer experience goals, we fall into endless discussions about this or that feature.
在全面的文档上运行软件在大型组织中，定义和调整业务价值非常复杂。 其中包括许多利益相关者，并且需要大量的利益相关者管理才能使每个人保持一致。 如果没有一致的公司愿景和客户体验目标，我们将对此功能进行无休止的讨论。
Customer collaboration over contract negotiationTake the word from Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon: “If there’s one reason we have done better than of our peers in the Internet space over the last six years, it is because we have focused like a laser on customer experience, and that really does matter, I think, in any business.”
通过合同谈判进行客户合作亚马逊创始人杰夫·贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)表示：“如果有一个原因，在过去六年中，我们在互联网领域的表现优于同行，那是因为我们像激光一样专注于客户体验，这对任何业务都非常重要。”
By now, it is very well known that focussing on customer experience is THE key to success. There are endless studies which prove this, yet a LOT of companies still don’t embrace a customer centric vision. They just can’t give up the control to some “clueless customers”. Focussing on customers also has another huge benefit: development people usually don’t care a lot about business metrics and goals. What they want to do is create software that is technically excellent and that has a purpose in this world. This means that focussing on human interactions and customer experience will enhance employee engagement greatly.
到目前为止，众所周知，专注于客户体验是成功的关键。 有无数的研究证明了这一点，但是许多公司仍然不接受以客户为中心的愿景。 他们只是不能将控制权交给某些“笨拙的客户”。 关注客户也有另一个巨大的好处：开发人员通常不太在乎业务指标和目标。 他们想要做的是创建技术上出色并且在这个世界上有目标的软件。 这意味着专注于人与人之间的互动和客户体验将大大提高员工的敬业度。
Responding to change over following a planAgile is about learning. By conducting small, feasible experiments, we discover what business and customer value look like. Continuous learning and iteration make us smarter individuals, which helps us define and balance risks in our daily work. Everyone has to be able to admit that he/she doesn’t know everything about the topic and scope, which opens up space for new insights. Also, sharing those insights creates a shared vision and trust between the team members. Companies that think that they know the market, the customers and the business perfectly are no good fit for working Agile.
响应遵循计划的转变敏捷就是学习。 通过进行小型可行的实验，我们发现业务和客户价值是什么样的。 不断的学习和迭代使我们变得更聪明，这有助于我们定义和平衡日常工作中的风险。 每个人都必须承认他/她并不了解有关主题和范围的所有知识，这为新的见解开辟了空间。 此外，共享这些见解将在团队成员之间建立共同的愿景和信任。 认为自己完全了解市场，客户和业务的公司不适合使用敏捷。
好的产品管理很难做到 (Good product management is oh so hard to do)
Product management skills are something that’s missing in a lot of product teams. They are hard to learn and often only learned by experience.
产品管理技能是许多产品团队所缺少的。 他们很难学习，往往只能通过经验学习。
As value isn’t easily definable, creating customer and/or business value is a huge challenge. Plus, how do we report about value creation to the stakeholders matters a lot. If you’re doing it wrong, you define static business goals and you never refine them. If you’re doing it right, you set up a mission & vision. You work towards it while constantly iterating on the business goals. You also frequently communicate about those goals and KPI’s. Some include: what do we want to measure? What does success look like? How do we plan on achieving this?
由于价值不容易确定，因此创造客户和/或业务价值是一项巨大的挑战。 此外，我们如何向利益相关者汇报创造价值的问题非常重要。 如果做错了，您将定义静态业务目标，并且永远不会对其进行完善。 如果做对了，就可以设定任务和愿景。 在不断迭代业务目标的同时，您会朝着目标努力。 您还经常就这些目标和KPI进行交流。 其中包括：我们要衡量什么？ 成功是什么样的？ 我们如何计划实现这一目标？
“If it’s just about finishing a project on time and budget, you not only missing out on creating value and work under the assumptions that Agile wants to validate, you also frustrate the whole principle of Agile.” — Dennis Hambeukers
“如果只是要按时和预算完成项目，那么您不仅会错过按照敏捷要验证的假设来创造价值和工作的机会，而且还会挫败敏捷的全部原则。” —丹尼斯·哈姆贝克斯
And as we’re already busy with product management, let’s get another crappy assumption out of the way that’s been there for ages: It’s not always better to deliver quicker. Just shipping isn’t the only way to check if you’re building the right thing.
而且，由于我们已经在忙于产品管理，因此让我们从一个已经存在了很久的方式中得出另一个糟糕的假设： 更快交付并不总是更好。 出货并不是检查您是否制造正确的唯一方法。
Agile is about learning and checking what we’re doing is the right thing. If we know from the beginning that what we’re shipping isn’t the right thing, why the hell should we ship it? Just so we’re able to show that great burn-down chart to business? Screw that!
敏捷就是学习和检查我们在做什么是正确的。 如果从一开始就知道我们要运送的东西不正确，那我们为什么要运送它呢？ 只是这样我们才能向企业展示出色的业绩图表？ 拧！
UX Design如何适合这张图片？ (How does UX Design fit into this picture?)
I truly believe that an experienced, socially skilled UX Designer is the key to solving a lot of the Agile issues. For the sake of simplicity, let’s focus on Scrum as the development framework.
我坚信，经验丰富，具有社交技能的UX设计器是解决许多敏捷问题的关键。 为了简单起见，我们将Scrum作为开发框架。
Oftentimes, after a few sprints, organizations conclude that Agile and UX Design don’t match. UX design works with concepts, research and complex structures. In short, it works on the great whole, while Agile development wants to cut down big, complex constructs into small, releasable pieces.
通常，经过几次冲刺，组织得出结论认为，敏捷和UX设计不匹配。 UX设计需要概念，研究和复杂的结构。 简而言之，它可以在总体上发挥作用，而敏捷开发则希望将大型，复杂的结构分解为可释放的小块。
But if done right, they can work together miraculously because they share the same values. Discovery, continuous iteration, focus on user / customer experience are just some of the overlaps. In the end, the methods might vary, but the end goal is the same.
但是，如果做得对，他们可以奇迹般地一起工作，因为他们拥有相同的价值观。 发现，连续迭代，关注用户/客户体验只是其中的一些重叠。 最后，方法可能会有所不同，但最终目标是相同的。
As with any Scrum environment, just blindly following the rules won’t get you far. You have to iterate on the process to define your own way of working. Scrum provides the framework, but just following Scrum won’t make you agile.
与任何Scrum环境一样， 盲目地遵循规则不会使您步入正轨。 您必须迭代过程以定义自己的工作方式。 Scrum提供了框架，但是仅仅遵循Scrum并不会使您敏捷。
The harsh reality is that a lot of teams are disconnected to the business and the users, they just follow orders. That doesn’t inspire innovation at all. The work of an Agile team isn’t just to deliver features. The goal is to build working software that creates value, and everything that brings the team closer to this goal is the work of the team. Delivering an analysis into user account settings might not sound like a sexy deliverable, but it’s crucial to have when you want to restructure the account settings of your product.
严酷的现实是，很多团队都与业务和用户脱节 ，他们只是遵循命令。 这根本不会激发创新。 敏捷团队的工作不仅仅是交付功能。 目标是构建能够创造价值的工作软件，而使团队更接近这一目标的一切都是团队的工作。 对用户帐户设置进行分析可能听起来并不理想，但是当您要重组产品的帐户设置时，至关重要。
And that’s where the UX / Service Designer shines. We are by definition curious human beings. We adapt to the circumstances, always focussing on value delivery. We help our peers to achieve their goals, and it doesn’t matter if we have to do an analysis of a flow, conduct user research or refine a feature together with the engineers. We lead by example and show the team how to create user-centered solutions to real problems. We educate the team while also learning new skills ourselves. We build a bridge between business, customers and the Agile team.
这就是UX /服务设计器的魅力所在。 根据定义，我们是好奇的人。 我们适应环境，始终专注于价值创造。 我们帮助同行实现他们的目标，无论我们是否需要对流程进行分析，进行用户研究或与工程师一起完善功能都无关紧要。 我们以身作则，并向团队展示如何为实际问题创建以用户为中心的解决方案。 我们在教育团队的同时也要自己学习新技能。 我们在业务，客户和敏捷团队之间架起了一座桥梁。
对于设计师来说，出色的敏捷/ Scrum设置是什么样的？ (What does a great Agile / Scrum setting look like for a designer?)
- The Product Owner is able to define and communicate what business value looks like. Depending on the circumstances, he/she adapts to the learnings and progress made. Also, the PO plans upcoming work together with all of the other team members in order to create achievable sprint goals. 产品负责人能够定义和传达什么样的业务价值。 根据情况，他/她会适应学习和取得的进步。 此外，PO计划与所有其他团队成员一起计划即将开展的工作，以建立可实现的冲刺目标。
- The UX / Service Designer supports the PO in defining, measuring and communicating business value. He/she also helps the team in defining how that value creation can be achieved by ideating, designing, prototyping and testing early on with end users. UX /服务设计器支持PO定义，衡量和传达业务价值。 他/她还帮助团队定义了如何通过尽早与最终用户进行构思，设计，原型设计和测试来实现价值创造。
- The Scrum Master keeps the team on track, solves issues inside the team and in general supports the process of building working software. Scrum Master可以保持团队的正常运转，解决团队内部的问题，并总体上支持构建工作软件的过程。
- The engineers are not just building features that business requests. They’re an integral part of the decision making process, having a say in what and how working software is delivered. 工程师不仅在构建业务要求的功能。 它们是决策过程中不可或缺的一部分，可以决定如何交付软件以及如何交付软件。
Every team member has it’s own specific focus, but big decisions are made together. It’s utterly crucial that every team member understands what they’re going to work on and why they’re going to work on that specific feature / functionality / analysis.
每个团队成员都有自己特定的重点，但是共同做出重大决定。 至关重要的是，每个团队成员都必须了解他们将要从事的工作以及为何要从事该特定功能/功能/分析。
The UX / Service Designer acts as a buffer in this team, he/she supports the ones that need support when they need it. In some Sprints, the PO might need a lot of help with an analysis or presentation. In the next sprints, the engineers might need support for the design of a new feature.
UX /服务设计器在该团队中充当缓冲，他/她在需要时为需要支持的人提供支持。 在某些Sprint中，PO可能需要大量帮助进行分析或演示。 在下一个Sprint中，工程师可能需要支持新功能的设计。
The role of the designer is as agile as possible. A good designer is able to inspect and adapt, shifting tasks to create team value. The ultimate goal is to enrich the UX maturity of the whole team, making it easier for the team to carry out some of the designer’s tasks after certain period of time. And sometimes, the designer might even work for multiple teams.
设计者的角色尽可能地敏捷。 优秀的设计师能够检查和调整 任务，以创造团队价值 。 最终目标是丰富整个团队的UX成熟度，使团队在一定时间后更容易执行一些设计师的任务。 有时，设计师甚至可能为多个团队工作。
外卖 (The takeaway)
- Agile, scrum and UX Design can build a harmonious relationship 敏捷，敏捷和用户体验设计可以建立和谐的关系
- They can help each other shine, filling the gaps that each of them has 他们可以互相帮助，填补彼此之间的空白
- Doing Agile right means respecting the Agile values deeply 正确地执行敏捷意味着要深刻尊重敏捷价值
- As a UX designer, we need to be shape-shifting, socially-skilled individuals 作为UX设计师，我们需要成为具有变化能力，具有社交技能的个人
- We need to see ourselves as a bridge-building, team-uniting designers 我们需要将自己视为搭建桥梁，团队团结的设计师
- We need to be able to step away from our ingenious design processes and fixed structures 我们需要能够摆脱我们独创的设计流程和固定结构
- A great Agile team can teach and learn from each other, elevating everyone’s skills 一个优秀的敏捷团队可以互相教与学，提升每个人的技能
翻译自: https://uxplanet.org/an-agile-scrum-ux-design-love-story-6b6b429baa9c