Agile Design Methods
  • Blog
  • Methods
  • Resources
    • Online Course
    • Mobile App
    • Public Course
  • Contact Chuck
  • Search

Agile Design Methods: A Conversational Approach

8/18/2017

1 Comment

 
Picture
Agile design methods are powerfully simple techniques and leadership skills that make process design conversations flow with better collaboration and results.
​

The resulting design is typically produced at a lower cost than traditional methods with a high degree of precision and improved stakeholder engagement and satisfaction.

When considering how to get from understanding a problem to designing and delivering a solution, the process is a predictable set of conversations that inform every step along the way from ideation to delivery.

​Getting "from-concept-to-market" faster and more effectively yields competitive advantage as well as a solution more likely to resonate with the people who will ultimately buy or use it.

The concepts described herein apply whether your field of endeavor is operational excellence or product development.

As an organizational leader facilitating efforts to improve a process or product manager engaging your design team, you face predictable challenges when moving from some vague notion of a concept to actually designing the solution.

Here are some aspects that affect your future state design process:

  • Clarity
    Why are we doing this?
    ​Why does it matter?
    What problems are we trying to solve for and who will buy/use our solution?
    How do the problems materialize in the quality of life of those affected?
    How else does the problem materialize?
    What are the qualities of the ideal solution?
​
  • Velocity
    How do we get the design flywheel started?
    What does progress look like in the early stages of the process?
    How do we create a "fast path" to produce high-quality design deliverables that will inform the designers and architects of the envisioned solution?

  • Engagement
    How do we develop trust and confidence within the design team?
    How do we acquire the whole-hearted participation of the people tasked with designing the solution?
    How do we vet the impact of the envisioned solution with potential buyers/users?

A Solution-Oriented Conversational Framework

So just how does one get from concept to delivery? 

The process for getting there is easily represented as a series of conversations.
"We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there." 

- Jerry Reed
​Early conversations focus on Why and What: 
  • Understanding what the problem is and why it matters, and designing by describing what the ideal qualities of the solution entail, in just enough essential detail.
  • These conversations are enabled via agile design methods that produce specific deliverables intended for decision-makers, stakeholders as well as solutions designers and architects.

Latter conversations focus on How:
  • Designing and delivering the solution.
  • These conversations are enabled by agile development methods that produce specific deliverables intended for decision-makers as well as solutions developers and delivery channel stakeholders.

This approach lends itself to introducing the right conversation at the right time.
Conversation #1: Learning and Discovery

The scope of this conversation pertains to the understanding of the problem. ​This conversation is in scope of agile design methods.​

Allow the voice of the people who are experiencing the problem(s) to inform this conversation. Listen and learn and document that learning to describe what each problem looks like and summarize them in problem statements in addition to statements of what is working well.

Document this learning and discovery conversation to inform the future state design conversation. Decide whether or not to proceed to a future state design conversation.

Conversation #2: Future State Design

The scope of this conversation pertains to the describing the ideal solution. This conversation is in scope of agile design methods.

Allow a dedicated and accountable group of contributors to inform a conversation around describing "what" the ideal solution looks without describing "how" the solution will be implemented. The descriptive language is free from any implementation jargon and focuses on delivering a clear description of the envisioned solution that may include process definitions, key solution deliverables, user experience criteria, risks, issues and opportunities.

Document this future state design conversation to inform the solution development conversation. Decide whether or not to continue to a solution development conversation.

Conversation #3: Solution Development

The scope of this conversation pertains to designing and developing the solution. This conversation is out of scope of agile design methods. 

Allow a dedicated and accountable group of designers and architects to inform a conversation that describes "how" the ideal solution will be implemented. The descriptive language is rich in implementation detail. It may provide design alternatives that provide varying degrees of cost, risk, time, return on investment, etc. Decisions are made regarding design alternatives and leading to the actual development of a solution.

Document this solutions development to inform the solution delivery conversation. This conversation is out of scope of agile design methods.

Conversation #4: Solution Delivery

The scope of this conversation pertains to the delivery and support of the solution. This conversation is out of scope of agile design methods.

Allow a dedicated and accountable group to inform a conversation that oversees the delivery of the solution. This includes launching and promoting the solution as well as supporting it and providing user experience feedback to inform solution improvement efforts.

Agile Design Methods Describe What Not How

Agile design methods are those techniques and leadership skills that enable a future state design process characterized by high velocity, collaborative engagement and clarity of ideation. The resulting design is typically produced at a lower cost than traditional methods with a high degree of precision and improved stakeholder engagement and satisfaction.

The outputs of these conversations intentionally stop short of designing the implementation, They describe what the problems are and what the ideal solution qualities look like. This informs solutions architects and designers who are responsible for determining how to design the solution and the production/development teams that will deliver it.
Picture
Agile Design Methods: The What Perspective
Agile design methods, as quickly as practically possible, describe what is envisioned to be an ideal process or solution. They produce ideation deliverables that describe what the problems are and what the ideal solution qualities look like.

Exercising this type of "Design the What" discipline respects a separation of concerns between the market problem definition and the solution design definition. It informs the solution designers and architects who are responsible to "Design the How" of the solution under discussion.

​At the time of this writing, the phrase "agile design methods" is not widely used or understood.
Agile Development Methods: The How Perspective
In contrast, agile development methods, as quickly as practically possible, define how to architect the solution and then proceed in building and delivering that solution. They ​produce deliverables that describe how the solution is to be implemented and they produce the actual solution. ​

At the time of this writing, the phrase "agile software development" is commonplace and is routinely associated with the word "agile".

Agile Design Methods: Subscribe for "How To"

The purpose of this primer has been to establish a foundation of a conversational framework that provides context as to where agile design methods fit in an overall solution development life cycle.

It sets the stage for further elaboration on topics related to agile design methods, collaborative creativity, product development and user experience.

- Chuck

Subscribe to my free blog updates to receive content that vividly describes the techniques and leadership skills that embody the practice of agile design methods. The blog contains not only my ideas on the topic, but the insight of others who actively work and thrive wholeheartedly in the realms of collaborative creativity.

​I look forward to you joining us. It's going to be quite a journey.
Learn the Secrets of Successful Agile Designers
1 Comment

How Words Affect Your Solution

8/4/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
As a facilitator leading a collaborative group in pursuit of a solution, the misunderstanding of words surfaces time and again as a velocity-killing pitfall. 

Ambiguity and uncertainty impede progress, whereas clarity and sureness accelerate it. Here is a simple and effective technique that I use to help avoid this predictable pitfall in the collaborative process.

Risks and Delays Result from a Lack of Clarity

To describe this pitfall, imagine that you are leading a series of working meetings comprised of a dedicated group of people who meet regularly. You all are tasked with designing a solution to a problem and communicating it to stakeholders at specific points in time to vet and approve your design.

Here are a few examples of what the pitfall might look like:
  • The Memory-Lapsed Facilitator
    You preside over a learning and discovery meeting comprised of the perfect collaborative tribe. Good natured, synergistic, well-read and knowledgable, every person is a domain expert who contributes openly and actively. It's a joy to lead this group because of their willingness to be present and fully engaged.

    As the meeting unfolds, the group discovers problems and envisions solutions at a rapid clip. There is high energy and a high pace of sharing. However, as you facilitate, you are struggling to record the key concepts being discussed. 

    At the end of your meeting, you find yourself in the unenviable position of having to use your own memory to reconstruct the conversations and record them somehow for the purposes of corporate memory. Despite your best intentions and efforts, you ultimately produce a summary document with unintentional omissions and a lack of clarity regarding what was discussed. When the document is distributed to stakeholders, it causes delays and additional follow-up meetings to reconstruct what was missing or inaccurately recorded.​
    ​
  • The Overwhelmed Reviewer
    Ashwin is a busy domain expert, a business stakeholder who represents an organization affected by your solution. Your team is engaging him in a socialization effort to help vet the solution you have envisioned.

    Ashwin is unable to attend a review meeting due to his demanding schedule. He has requested the solution documentation to review. The document contains jargon and colloquial phrases that have unclear meanings to him. After giving his only available 30 minutes to the effort of reviewing the document, Ashwin quits his review efforts, frustrated because he is unclear about the meaning of the words being used.

    At best, from a velocity perspective, he "approves" of the document without a high degree of certainty because he has no more time to allocate to reviewing your work. This introduces risk to your work effort because of the low quality of vetting. At worst, the work effort is delayed while the team and Ashwin find a meeting time in the future to work out their differences in understanding.

  • The Disaffected Decision Maker
    Regina joins a review meeting as a decision-maker. As a cameo participant, she is uninvested in the words being bantered about in the meeting. As a result, she challenges their meaning and spends a lot of time seeking clarification. Various people from your dedicated group offer explanations. But, their meanings don't converge leaving Regina with more questions than answers.

    As the meeting proceeds, Regina's confidence in the group's understanding of the problem and solution is not reinforced. The work effort stalls. At best, a delay in progress occurs until mutual understanding is established in the future. At worst, the work ends permanently.

Be Intentional: Build a Glossary

As a collaborative facilitator, if your approach does not emphasize the necessity of capturing key concepts and their meanings, you are unintentionally building in delays in the process of getting your work done.

A glossary is an effective accelerator in any collaborative design. It takes focused effort and intentionality to produce one.
Ambiguity and uncertainty are impediments to progress whereas clarity and confidence accelerate progress. 
However, in my experience, having a glossary available to collaborators is worth the effort because it serves as an accelerator an work effort accelerator whereas the absence of a glossary causes delays and other negative side-effects.

Here is an approach I use and recommend while facilitating collaborative meetings;  
  1. Prepare: Make sure that someone (you or a designated person in the meeting) serves as a scribe to record words and their meanings. When meeting in a room, I suggest having 8" x 6" Post-it Super Sticky Notes and a Sharpie permanent marker available at all times. When meeting virtually online or over the phone, I suggest having the Evernote application open at all times.

  2. Listen: While facilitating the collaborative conversation, listen for concepts or notions that might not be easily understood by others not as invested in the conversation. When the you hear a word or phrase, stop the conversation briefly, "Let's capture that idea as a glossary term."

  3. Record:  Typically there is one person in the conversation who can authoritatively verbalize the glossary term. Have that person state it while the scribe records it.

  4. Confirm: Have the scribe read it back to the group to get confirmation. Record any refinements and then move on with the meeting.

    For example, in a recent cross-functional human resources effort, our team came up with these terms. One of them had a single meaning. Another had multiple meanings stated in separate sentenced.

    exit interview – A final meeting to collect specific assets from the employee. A survey conducted with an individual who is separating from employment.

    involuntary – The condition upon which separation occurs that is not initiated by the employee.

    line management – A set of managers in the lower layers of the management hierarchy (e.g., team leader, supervisor) that manage employees who have no supervisory responsibilities.


  5. Publish: Long after the meeting, because you were intentional you now have the corporate memory to reconstruct what was said by publishing the recorded glossary terms in whatever form is appropriate (e.g., appendix in a published document, page on a collaborative website or wiki).

Making your glossary accessible to all stakeholders provides a clarifying reference resource that accelerates understanding and positively affect the progress of your collaborative work effort. I hope this has been a helpful perspective for you.

​- Chuck


Subscribe to my free blog updates to receive content that vividly describes the techniques and leadership skills that embody the practice of agile design methods. The blog contains not only my ideas on the topic, but the insight of others who actively work and thrive wholeheartedly in the realms of collaborative creativity.

​I look forward to you joining us.
​
Free Updates by Email
0 Comments

The Open-Ended Question That Opens People Up

7/21/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
When asked authentically, this three-syllable question creates connectedness, trust and understanding with anyone, even a person you have just met.

This matters because empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, is an essential ingredient in the process of designing solutions for people.

How can we understand how others are feeling unless we ask? Asking the question unlocks the potential to observe problems that would otherwise go unobserved. This is a gold mine of understanding for solutions designers.


"How's Your Day?"

So, I routinely ask this question of people because:
  • It comes from a place inside of me that truly cares about people
  • It informs my understanding of how people in the world around me are experiencing the world around me

​So often, our daily existence and interactions are framed by disconnectedness and distrust. Asking this question to someone else is so counter-cultural. Consequently, it produces a measurable shift in the environment and it creates a sense of trust and connectedness.

One of my favorite contexts to ask the question is while getting things done on the phone, standing in line or chatting online.
In the past week I can recall asking the question of people in the following contexts:
  • while waiting for a seat at a restaurant
  • while interacting with a benefits coordinator for my health care company
  • while chatting with a tech support staff member online
  • while going through the check-out line at the grocery store
  • while talking with relatives who live far away from me
  • while transacting business over the phone
We exist in a world characterized by disconnectedness and distrust.

Consequently, introducing a countercultural question produces a measurable shift in the environment and it builds trust and connectedness.

Try It and See

Understanding how people in the world are feeling is easy. Just ask them. They'll tell you. Listen to them and learn what problems they are experiencing. It will inform your design decisions.

When the woman you are talking with senses that you care enough about her to ask how her day is going, it breathes fresh life into the conversation, even if she is having a bad day. Somehow when you care enough to ask, it reaffirms her humanity and causes her to reflect on how she's feeling.

If we, as solutions designers, practice this kind of authentic caring, listening and learning on an ongoing basis, we tap into a limitless supply of priceless insight for free by simply exercising a common courtesy towards another person.

Your empathy for people and willingness to be vulnerable enough to go there immensely affect your solution design.

- Chuck


Subscribe to my free blog updates that contain not only my ideas on the topic, but the insight of others who actively work and thrive wholeheartedly in the realms of collaborative creativity.

I hope you'll get a lot of benefit from it.
Learn the Secrets of Successful Agile Designers
0 Comments

We Can Do This, Can't We?

7/7/2017

0 Comments

 
Designing a solution without knowing what problem you're solving leads to this.

This is classic. I'll let the statement made stand on its own.

​I've been there, done that! How about you?

- Chuck

Subscribe to my free blog updates to receive content that vividly describes the techniques and leadership skills that embody the practice of agile design methods. The blog contains not only my ideas on the topic, but the insight of others who actively work and thrive wholeheartedly in the realms of collaborative creativity.

You just might benefit from joining us.
Free Updates by Email
0 Comments

Key Ingredients for Effective Cross-Functional Working Meetings

6/23/2017

1 Comment

 
As operational excellence professionals and solutions designers, we face the inevitable challenges of leading a series cross-functional working meetings. These meetings exist for a distinctive purpose and must be run in a distinctive way. They can either be great or they can be like Kryptonite. 

Typically these meetings are comprised of people who represent their respective function in the organization and we are the designated leader. The corporate champion of the cross-functional effort deems this group a "team" at a kick-off meeting and routinely vanishes, as she should, for the duration because of more pressing executive priorities.

Team? Hardly. The reality is that at the onset the newly formed ensemble of free-agents is anything but a functioning team. This particular group has never worked together before.

The aspirations of the effort rest on the shoulders of the leader at the onset. As the person leading this effort, it is imperative to address the immediate challenges to build and maintain engagement while actually getting things done.

Wholehearted Meetings: The Buzzing of the Hive

Picture
The ideal meeting is characterized by full engagement. You know it when you see it and it's a delight to lead and participate in meetings where you see people.
  • fully engaged
  • leaning forward
  • interacting with one another instead of just the facilitator
  • energized
  • learning
  • sharing
  • creating
  • having fun
  • laptops closed
  • actively looking forward to participating in the next meetings 

The tone of the meetings are characterized by a wonderful "buzzing of the hive" quality, as my friend and ally Gary Evans refers to it. I love these meetings.


Half-Hearted Meetings: The Dirge

Picture
In contrast, the other kind of meeting is sheer drudgery and you can recognize it when you see people:
  • disengaged
  • passively observing without participating
  • interacting with their email or smartphone
  • tired
  • bored
  • sleeping
  • drained
  • grandstanding
  • complying
  • checked-out
  • only speaking when spoken to
  • relying on the leader doing most of the talking
  • ​praying for the meeting to end early or for a fire drill

These meetings are agonizing. I would rather rush out on the campus lawn and empale myself prostrate on a sprinkler head than to have to lead or be part of these kinds of meetings. Really.

Key Ingredients That Affect Team Engagement

As a leaders of these work efforts, we must do everything that we can to shift the atmosphere of these meetings. I offer the following key ingredients that a leader must intentionally manage in the meeting experience in order to get the design flywheel spinning:

  • ​Trust
    As a participant, I feel safe, understood and respected
  • Velocity
    As a group, we collectively understand how progress is to be made and we are actively contributing to that work effort
  • Learning
    As individuals we are learning new things that contribute to our personal growth and organizational effectiveness
  • Fun
    As a group, we have a special alchemy that doesn't occur unless we are together

These sound like platitudes. But, the responsibility is on us as leaders of these cross-functional work efforts to conduct them in a way such that people contribute their best and so that the organization benefits, learns and adapts from the work done by the group.

Suggestions for How To Lead

There is no one silver bullet, however, over the years, I have developed a variety of techniques that have proven to contribute to a trusting, fun and higher-velocity meeting environment. Some of these might work for you.

Things To Say (At the Onset and Often)
  • "I am committed to leading the team as effectively and efficiently as possible and will rely upon your contributions to produce the deliverables expected of us."
  • "We make progress when we write things down and capture ideas."
  • "I acknowledge that we all have responsibilities beyond this team. We have our day jobs. Yet, we need your participation. I look forward to having a lot of fun, hard work, organizational learning and personal growth in our time together."
  • "We come into this meeting wearing the hat of our particular organizational function. I'm going to ask you to take your hats off in this meeting and, to the degree possible, speak to what is best for delivering to the needs of the organization as a whole."
  • Ask open-ended questions and be comfortable with the dead air that follows. If the participants have deer-in-headlights stares or hesitate, say, "This isn't a guess-what-the-leader-is-thinking question. I truly don't have an answer in mind. We want to know what you think about this." Never, ever, ever answer your own question. Letting participants answer questions helps to foster their sense of ownership rather than relying on you to do the thinking for them.

Things To Have
  • Co-leader, if at all possible, for the duration of the meetings. A diving buddy is a tremendous asset in leading these efforts and doing effective discovery and future state design meetings.
  • Bring food and coffee to the first few meetings, and every meeting if possible. It expresses a graciousness and welcomeness that is distinctive and genuine.
  • Bring toys and thingies for people to manipulate. My personal list includes a travel-size Etch-a-Sketch, pipe cleaners, Silly Putty, Slinky, squishables, squeezables, rival fish, Nerf balls, spinning tops, splat balls, Tangles and hand sanitizer. Just keep them in a "bag of tricks" that you bring your meeting. Lay them on the table at the onset of the meeting. People will figure out what to do with them.
  • Bring snacks for afternoon breaks.
  • Yellow stickies and Sharpies.
  • Whiteboard and at least four colored erasable markers
  • Projector for reviewing work products as a team
  • Smartphone for taking photos of whiteboard work and emailing them back to yourself to have a crisp memory of what was discussed/discovered corporately
  • A sense of humor, humility and vulnerability. Having an aura of over-confidence and wanting to be right all the time is a trust killer and stifles the kind of vulnerability that leads to creativity and positive change.

Things To Do
  • At the onset, be intentional in helping the team to get to know one another in a way that helps in self-awareness and other-awareness, while providing the opportunity for personal growth. The time you spend here up front in developing awareness and having some disclosure will contribute to success down the line. I am a huge fan of the True Colors assessment and recommend using their card sorting exercise in the meeting room. Teams refer to this True Color reference point again and again throughout the meetings. It's an effective harmonizer and contributes to authenticity and vulnerability in order to develop trust within the team.
  • Observe the energy level in the meeting. When participation wanes, take a break
  • Sit in someone else's seat, literally. Break up the routine from meeting to meeting by intentionally taking the seat where somebody else sat the last time. This helps guard against people settling into a routine from meeting-to-meeting.
  • Consider half-day meetings, to maintain high energy levels and to respect people's other priorities.
  • Create a high-level agenda of the meeting, just bullet points, with the desired outcomes of the particular meeting. Share that verbally at the onset of the meeting and then manage to it.
  • Tag team with your co-leader. One of you facilitates while the other scribes. You lead some meetings or portions of the meetings. They lead other meetings or portions.
  • Have a de-brief time with your co-leader (or time of personal reflection, if you are leading by yourself) immediately following your meeting to reflect upon what worked well, where tension and opportunity exists in the room, and where to go next.
  • Send out a "thank you email" shortly after the meeting to thank people for their contributions and participation, to reinforce good progress and to affirm their good work. Keep it simple and informal and end with "I look forward to our next time together". Genuine attention and appreciation go a long way in reinforcing good teamwork.

What's In Your Bag of Tricks?

If you have found this to be helpful, have a comment, or if you have other ideas for that make for exceptional cross-functional meetings, I would love to hear from you.

​- Chuck

Subscribe to my free blog updates to receive content that vividly describes the techniques and leadership skills that embody the practice of agile design methods. The blog contains not only my ideas on the topic, but the insight of others who actively work and thrive wholeheartedly in the realms of collaborative creativity.

​I look forward to you joining us. It's going to be quite a journey.
Free Updates via Email
1 Comment

The Downside of How Geeks Describe the World

6/9/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
"Start with Why" is widely espoused as the ultimate stake-in-the-ground for designing any solution or any change. Who can argue with this? It's a great place to start.

Describing why leads to describing what is needed and for whom. Ultimately, describing what leads to describing how it will be designed. Why leads to What, Who and How.

Starting this discovery conversation quickly leads to a predictable set of statements that are helpful in describing what is ultimately motivating the change and for whom:
  • We need [some notion of a solution described here] so that we [experience a benefit described here]
  • I want [some notion of a solution described here] so that I [experience a benefit described here]​
Nestled in each of these statements is a description of the motivation for the envisioned change or needed solution. The envisioned end result exists to bring about some desired future state.

Captain Obvious stuff, for sure. However, my guidance is directed at the more fledgling officers who so easily and routinely fall into the following easily avoidable pitfall.

Beware: The Pitfall of Using Solution Language

How this works out practically is easily described by way of example.

Consider the following statements:
  1. We need a new iPhone app so that we engage our mobile market better.

  2. We need a way of interacting with our potential and existing customers so that we have the opportunity to be connected with them anywhere at any time.
When motivation statements are framed in design elements (e.g., iPhone, mobile, buttons) the solution design effort risks veering into a pitfall because describing "how" is not the same as understanding "why".
Now, consider the following cross-checking questions as it pertains to these statements:
  • Which statement is more durable?
  • Which would be just as valid ten years from now as it is today?
  • Which one assumes a solution?
  • Which one has a clearer statement of benefit?

Now, imagine you are a solutions designer trying to solve for one statement or the other.

Exactly.

A designer's choices are severely limited by statement #1 whereas statement #2 leads to further exploration in discovering important notions that drive design clarity:
  • Who are the people in the market?
  • What are some representative personas we can create so that we can design for them?
  • What would the ideal solution look like for each of those personas?​

Understanding "Why" Matters More Than Describing "How"

When motivation statements are framed in design elements (e.g., iPhone, mobile, buttons) the solution design effort risks veering into a pitfall because describing "how" is not the same as understanding "why". 
​

Describing "how the solution is to be built" in the early stages of learning and discovery disrespects two critically important voices in the solution conversation;
  • Users
  • Solution Designers
Don't disrespect users and solution designers by leading them by their respective noses to your envisioned solutions.
Users want solutions that cater to them. If you bring them a solution that does not respect who they are, it will not resonate with them and will ultimately not be a viable solution to their problem.

Solution designers want a clear description regarding the problem, who it affects and what the envisioned benefits of the ideal solution entail. Thy need this so that they can define a solution with respect for who it is for and how it affects them. If you bring them a solution statement, you have disrespected their opinion.

Don't disrespect users and solution designers by leading them by the nose to your envisioned solutions.

- Chuck


Subscribe to my free blog updates to receive content that vividly describes the techniques and leadership skills that embody the practice of agile design methods. The blog contains not only my ideas on the topic, but the insight of others who actively work and thrive wholeheartedly in the realms of collaborative creativity.

I hope you'll join us.
Free Updates by Email
0 Comments

"How Hard Can It Be?": Musings of Underestimation

5/26/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Progressing through life look so easy when observed from afar When viewed from a distance from the vantage point of outer space, the Earth looks like a smooth round orb. Getting from one point to another seems like it shouldn't be the that complicated. A person's life cycle progresses through predictable phases of conception, pre-birth, birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, mid-life, mature adulthood, and death.
It's all so predictably smooth and uncomplicated. Right?

So, What's the Problem?

In that line of thinking, ​"How hard can it be?", is a phrase often mused by product managers and organizational leaders who drive solution design on an accelerated timetable. This opinion assumes line-of-sight progress and overlooks the practical challenges of quickly developing a vision for the future that can generate real impact. Designing a future state that drives value rapidly is an ambitious aim that risks underestimating the complexities involved.

Experts such as designers, architects, and team facilitators would dispute this claim. Professionals with real-world experience enabling innovation and progress understand the flaws in this perspective. They recognize the complex interplay of forces that must be navigated to drive meaningful change. Simply proposing an ideal end state without acknowledging practical constraints leads seasoned leaders in these fields to dismiss such assertions as unrealistic.

Experienced business analysts will attest that underestimating complex initiatives is an extremely common occurrence in organizations of all sizes. The realities of project management frequently defy even the best-laid plans. Unforeseen interdependencies, resources constraints, and technical hurdles confront teams on a daily basis. Seasoned analysts anticipate these complications emerging early and often based on hard-won experience. Grand visions crumble when abstract ideas collide with concrete deadlines, budgets, and capabilities. Veterans of the implementation battlefield know that launching transformational change requires addressing nitty-gritty operational concerns - not just lofty aspirations. Any practitioner versed in organizational dynamics can confirm the regularity with which ambitious blueprints fail to grasp this fundamental lesson.

The reality is that life, at the ground-level of personal experience, is fraught with challenges and problems even in the absence of a deadline. The institutional problem space is likewise compounded by the complexities of politics, operational climate and culture.
"The demand for accelerated change is pervasive. Responding to it requires an effective, efficient means of defining the problem space so that solution designers can create a future state solution that delivers value by actually solving the problems people are experiencing.

This is the context in which the spirit of agile design thrives."
​When organizational leadership mandates transformational change from on high at an accelerated pace, it often does so without respecting the complexities required to describe the problem space and design the solution. The resulting underestimation of effort creates a pressure cooker atmosphere for those tasked with designing and creating the future state in a hurry.

The resulting solution design efforts are staffed and funded with fewer resources with a shorter window of opportunity to define and describe the ideal future-state process design.

What's In Your Agile Designer Toolkit?

As business analysts and solutions designers and marketers, we aspire to rise above the tangled realities of trying to enact change. We do this in a context where the realities are complex and interdependent and where tolerance for taking a lot of time to figure things out is in short supply.
So, what's it like in your world? ​What's in your agile designer toolbox? How do you approach this?
The demand for accelerated change is pervasive. Responding to it requires an effective, efficient means of defining the problem space so that solution designers can create a future state solution that delivers value by actually solving the problems people are experiencing. 

​This is the context in which the spirit of agile design thrives.


As a business analyst or solutions designer operating in this space, it requires an approach where defining the problem and designing the solution need to be done with a minimalist's acumen.

Developing an agile design perspective and related set of techniques, rituals and practices really helps in this future-state design wheelhouse.

So, I'm reaching out to my fellow practitioners. What's it like in your world? ​What's in your agile designer toolbox? How's it working for you? 

​I look forward to hearing from you.

- Chuck


Subscribe to my free blog updates to receive content that vividly describes the techniques and leadership skills that embody this practice of agile design methods. The blog contains not only my ideas on the topic, but the insight of others who actively work and thrive wholeheartedly in the realms of collaborative creativity.

Join us for the journey.
Learn the Secrets of Successful Agile Designers
0 Comments
Forward>>

    Learn the Art of
    ​Successful Agile Design

    Picture

    About Chuck Boudreau

    (boo'-dro) - I help people design solutions collaboratively using agile design methods. I have 30+ years of experience in designing software solutions and business processes, leading cross-functional process improvement teams as a business analyst, and helping product managers define and position products using Pragmatic Marketing. I am passionate about user experience design, dog training, beating drums in musical ensembles and collaboratively creating solutions with people.

    Chuck's Resume
    File Size: 67 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File



    Archives

    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017

    Categories

    All
    Agile Design
    Boredom
    Collaboration
    Connecteness
    Conversational Framework
    Design Insights
    Design Specification
    Design The "What"
    Documentation
    Empathy
    Environment
    Facilitation
    Feature Lists
    Future State Design
    Glossary
    Ideal Solution Statement
    Leadership
    Learning And Discovery
    Marketing
    Meetings
    Observation
    Pitfalls
    Problem Statement
    Requirements
    Scribe
    Solution Design
    Solution Designers
    Solution Development
    Solution Marketers
    Success Criteria
    Tips And Techniques
    Trust
    Use Cases
    Users
    User Stories
    Velocity

    RSS Feed

© 2016-2023 Chuck Boudreau | Privacy Policy

Photo from Sasquatch I
  • Blog
  • Methods
  • Resources
    • Online Course
    • Mobile App
    • Public Course
  • Contact Chuck
  • Search