Agile Design Notions

Agile design methods make process design conversations flow with better collaboration and results.

Making this happen requires intentionality. Here are some notions that influence how to lead and facilitate a group of people using agile design methods.

• Design "What" before designing "How".
• Describe "What" using only domain terminology not solution terminology.
• Defer designing the "How" to solution designers and architects.*
• Never call a meeting without defining an objective and deliverables.
• Leave your organizational hat at the door in design meetings.
• Make design meetings collaborative, kinesthetic, non-digital and visual.
• We make progress as we write things down. 
• An idea not captured is an idea lost.
• Having multiple whiteboards in a meeting room enhances flow.
• Your smartphone camera is your friend for capturing whiteboard work and moving forward.
• When the hive stops buzzing, it is time to take a break.****
• Trust is an accelerator. Fear is an inhibitor.
• Trust modeled by leaders begets trust in the meeting room.
• A conversational framework is more important to have during design meetings than a having solution framework.
• It takes less time to be approximately right than it does to be precisely wrong.
• Friends develop solutions. Enemies only deliver documentation.*
• "Tell me more" is a magic phrase that leads to the discovery of real issues/problems.*
• A market problem always has a significant emotional component to address.*
• Never ask a question with the answer in mind.
• As a facilitator, stating what you see is as effective as asking a question of the group.
• "I don't know" is a safe first response that ultimately must be assigned and answered.
• Always have a scribe working in the room.
• People routinely fail at following a process. However almost anyone can immediately perceive when something is out of alignment.**
• Confusion is costly.***
• Clarity puts a stop to confusion.

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* Pragmatic Marketing
** Paraphrase inspired by Alistair Cockburn
*** Jeff Jones of Bild
**** Gary Evans of Evanetics