Agile Adventures: Transforming Product Strategy in Biometrics Tech
- Sonia Theodoridou
- Feb 17, 2024
- 8 min read
Updated: Apr 20, 2024
The Problem
Many companies face similar burdens: unclear processes, messy communication, and a lack of a unified vision. These obstacles can hold back a company's growth team, slowing progress and stifling creativity.
The Outcomes
The story dives into practical ways to tackle these challenges head-on. It emphasises the importance of building a dynamic design team, embracing agile methods like Scrumban, and weaving UX practices into the organisation. I'll introduce handy tools like the "assumptions board" and a design thinking framework. I'll show how these strategies can spark real change in the product development process. By adopting them, teams can shape a clearer company vision, prioritise user needs, and foster a culture that values user experience.
This article refers to product designers, managers, and professionals across various industries, whether small startups or big corporations, facing similar situations.
01 Overview
My journey with Biometrid, previously known as Polygon, began in March 2020, just days before the world shifted dramatically due to the COVID-19 lockdown. In those early days, I had a pivotal conversation with John, our visionary Chief IT Architect. He gave me a simple yet powerful directive when assigning my first project to redesign the Biometrid website: 'Own the product!'. With those words emboldening my determination, I eagerly dove into the task.
My initial step was to familiarise myself with my colleagues, understand our existing design processes, study our design libraries, identify the developers responsible for code delivery, and collaborate with the marketing team to grasp project KPIs and business expectations. Unfortunately, what I found was a landscape:
lacking well-defined processes,
without structured design systems,
an alarming void of communication between design and development teams,
and devoid of relevant insights from competitor analyses and market research.
While this initial assessment might seem disheartening, it presented a unique opportunity. In the dynamic environment of a startup like ex-Polygon, still finding its footing, I saw the potential to shape a brand-new process from scratch.
General vs. Specialised Roles
It's important to note that the designers in my small team were mostly early in their careers, with some yet to delve into UX. I dedicated time to understanding them better through shared learning experiences, working together to ignite their awareness and skills. I encouraged them to ponder their career paths: Should they aim for versatility as UX professionals or specialise in specific areas?
During this phase, we were all on a journey of growth and discovery together.
Scrum or Kanban?
As a newcomer to agile methodologies, I eagerly sought guidance from Tom, our Tech Lead, who skilfully orchestrated the development team's efforts using a hybrid approach called Scrumban—a blend of Scrum and Kanban. The design tasks were on the same board as development and machine learning tasks and were composed into user stories by Tom.
While consolidating user stories from various departments onto a single board isn't inherently flawed, it's a practice more suitable for companies with a mature UX culture. Our design team had yet to achieve the level of maturity needed to seamlessly integrate with the development team's workflow — a workflow known for its speed and intensity. Additionally, the user stories were written and managed by Tom, who was unfamiliar with the intricacies of design thinking and the specific challenges users faced. As a product team, we were missing:
❌ a defined process,
❌ clear roles,
❌ organised ceremonies,
❌ and a cohesive voice throughout the product development lifecycle.
Do these challenges sound familiar to you?
At this point, my interest in UX strategy began to blossom. Jaime Levy outlines in her book that UX strategy involves strategically implementing UX practices within an organisation or specific business unit. It encompasses evaluating and enhancing the team's capabilities, expanding their influence, and prioritising projects for maximum return on investment (ROI). My objective shifted towards embedding UX within the agile team and, on a broader scale, fostering a UX-centric culture throughout the company.
02 Unresolved Issues
It wasn't just the company's website; this lack of a cohesive approach extended across all our critical projects. We lacked a unified vision. Development decisions were often driven by stakeholder preferences, with little consideration for user needs. Interdepartmental communication gaps led to frequent delays, increased costs, and subpar user experiences. Moreover, the unfortunate layoffs of at least ten colleagues, spurred by financial constraints, underscored the necessity of providing concrete proof of ROI to investors. How do you motivate colleagues when they feel intimidated by higher-ups?
Identifying the problem was one thing, but I grappled with a fundamental question: Could a newcomer like myself earn the trust necessary to implement a shared product vision where the company and stakeholders align on our products' direction?
03 New process - new boards
Adopting an open-minded approach required a stroke of luck, tangible results, and the support of a few influential colleagues willing to embrace change and experimentation. John and Tom rallied behind me, although it took considerable effort to win them over. Initially met with scepticism, my proposals for change pumped into questions like, "Why should we do this?".
Becoming an intrapreneurial
As mentioned earlier, winning people over requires effort. Proposing validated user research or creating MVPs for testing during the design phase was often dismissed as impractical in corporate settings. It was a moment of frustration.
I decided to persist and not let down. We studied each product, conducting design audits, discussing heuristics with colleagues, refining user flows, mapping out techniques, and crafting a concise design system tailored to our products. We formed a small yet adaptable team proficient in user research and interface design.
Until then, our approach felt like a feature factory—prioritising feature building over addressing user needs. I aimed to pivot towards a faster, more iterative, flexible, and efficient design process.
The Assumptions Board
While our sales team consistently generated valuable feedback and innovative ideas from client demo sessions daily, unfortunately, these insights often became lost in our day-to-day conversations on Slack, emails, or buried reports in Google Drive. Understanding the importance of giving these ideas proper attention, I set up a knowledge board on Jira. This board became a central hub for collecting all the assumptions and ideas from the business side and sharing them with the product team.
The knowledge board facilitated meaningful discussions among all teams and allowed us to get feedback and, if approved, smoothly integrate these ideas into our design plans.
The Assumptions Board
Expand to learn about each column.
The Assumptions board is essential for bridging our Business Model with our UX strategy. Many parts of the Business Model Canvas emphasise the importance of teamwork and communication during the early stages of understanding our customers. We needed to figure out who our customers are, how we reach them, what makes our product valuable, how we make money, and how to build relationships with our customers.
Assumption Example
The Product Design Board
Recognising that the standard five-day sprint was not enough for our design team, I was determined to ensure they had enough time to do their best work without being overwhelmed.
The Epic Panel
One of the strengths of Lean UX is its flexibility. Unlike rigidly structured processes, where each phase depends on the previous one, Lean UX allows us to adapt and allocate time-based on the project's specific requirements.
Next, we will see how it works.
04 Product Design Board: Phases and Processes
Our design process consists of seven phases. Each phase includes various methodologies and practices aimed at enhancing our design framework. Here's a detailed breakdown of how we navigated through each phase:
📌 Research, Ideation & Decision Making:
During the initial phase, we engaged in a concerted effort to define novel features or refine existing ones.
✔️ Describing new features or improvements through user story mapping in collaboration with the business, production, and development teams.
✔️ Conducting competitive analysis with active participation from the marketing and sales teams.
✔️ Incorporating stakeholder feedback gathered by the sales and marketing teams during demos on the knowledge board.
✔️ Facilitating brainstorming sessions among designers, encourage cross-functional participation and sketching, and utilising storyboards and mood boards created using Miro.
✔️ Conducting lot of generative research by studying books, articles, references, and similar case studies.
📌 Prototyping:
Once we had a clear direction from the research and ideation phases, we moved into the design phase. Here, we focused:
✔️ Creating prototypes using Figma or Miro - simple or detailed, depending on the user story and end goal.
✔️ Keeping our design system always up-to-date, adding new or improving existing components, modifying instances and variables, and elaborating auto-layout. This made production faster and more coherent.
✔️ Creating interactive prototypes to show the result and testing possible scenarios of how users interact with the product in real life.
📌 Validation, Review & Release:
In the final stages, we are testing our designs with real users bi-monthly (twice per month/once per sprint), validating our solutions, and preparing for delivery to the development team. We formed an in-house user testing guide for our observational studies. We needed to inform our team members of our findings so they could understand the needs of our customers and, by extension, the needs of our customers' customers. We were responsible for analysing and presenting the data, ensuring our colleagues gained insight into the broader customer needs. Additionally, we reviewed designs before release to the development team to ensure all design libraries, files, and instructions to them were up-to-date.
We view failure as an opportunity for learning. At the end line, we either initiated a new iterative cycle or progressed to the next feature. This structured approach ensures that our design process remains robust and adaptable, allowing us to iterate, learn, and continuously improve.
Sprint Ceremonies
Staggered Sprints
I've opted for Staggered Sprints to stay ahead of the development cycle by completing designs one or more sprints in advance. Staggered Sprints involve a sequential process where teams complete tasks in a specific order, typically with one group completing the initial task before another group begins theirs. We've embraced this approach due to the significant design challenges that demand a thorough understanding of complex business issues and require additional time.
2-Weeks Design Sprint Template
In the template above, I have outlined the ceremonies that I established for the new design sprint. Expand for details to use to your sprints.
Backlog Creation
Within our backlog, we categorise tasks as follows:
UX Dept tasks: These are tasks essential to the overall quality of the product. For example, they may include minor visual enhancements or updates to design systems, introducing new component variables.
Buffer tasks: Buffer tasks are our contingency measures for instances when specific tasks unexpectedly require more time to complete. These tasks help maintain workflow efficiency.
Design spikes: Design spikes are dedicated to mid-project discovery work and can interrupt the regular sprint flow. They address concerns related to upcoming stories. Importantly, non-dependent development tasks can continue alongside design spike sprints.
Lynn Miller’s Sprint Protocol
05 Impacts
All these said are nice, but what was the impact on the company?
06 Conclusion
Congratulations 🥳 on reaching the end of this article! Your patience and dedication are praiseworthy, and I sincerely thank you for accompanying me on this journey. Delving into the granular details of the past four years has been an enlightening experience, enriching my understanding of UX expertise within the realms of agile strategy and product management. I hope that this guide has offered you valuable insights and inspired new ideas that you can adapt to your workflow and team dynamics.
Reflecting on our journey, here are some key takeaways to remember:
Embrace failure as a catalyst for growth. It's through setbacks that we often find our opportunities for improvement.
Understand that product strategy is an empirical practice. It's not about crafting the perfect plan from the outset but rather about testing, failing, learning, and iterating en route.
Avoid making assumptions about user behaviour or product preferences. Instead, rely on data-driven insights and user testing to inform your decisions.
User testing can be remarkably effective with just five participants. Focus on quality over quantity and iterate based on their feedback.
Advocate for a strong UX culture within your organisation, even in the face of resistance. Persistence is the key to fostering a user-centric mindset among your colleagues.
Remember that cutting-edge technology isn't a prerequisite for delivering a great user experience. Focus on simplicity, clarity, and meeting user needs effectively.
Maintain a commitment to lifelong learning. The field of UX is constantly evolving, and staying informed about emerging trends and best practices is essential.
Recognise that UX principles are applicable everywhere, transcending industries and disciplines. Whether you design a website, a mobile app, or a physical product, prioritising user experience is paramount.
As you embark on your own UX journey, I encourage you to keep these principles in mind and continue striving for excellence in all your endeavours.
*The names of individuals mentioned in this article have been changed to protect their privacy while describing their involvement in the process.
