bringing design to life with lean ux & lean engineering - Lean Day West 2013
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The document discusses the challenges faced by PayPal in integrating design and engineering, highlighting issues of silos, lack of collaboration, and a measurement culture. It presents the adoption of Lean UX and Lean Engineering principles to enhance product development through shared understanding, deep collaboration, and continuous customer feedback. Key strategies include rapid prototyping, maintaining a focus on user experiences, and fostering a culture of experimentation to improve overall efficiency and innovation.
bringing design to life with lean ux & lean engineering - Lean Day West 2013
- 1. bringing design to life with lean ux & lean engineering lessons learned @ paypal in blending teams to create new experiences bill scott (@billwscott) sr. director, user interface engineering, paypal cody evol (@codyevol) checkout design lead, ued, paypal lean day west, portland or, sept 2013
- 2. the schedule 08:30-08:45 introductions (15) 08:45-09:30 the problem (45) 09:30-10:00 adopting lean (30) 10:00-10:15 break (15) 10:15-11:15 the lessons (60) 11:15-11:45 the tools (30) 11:45-12:00 Q & A
- 3. the problem a look at where paypal has been. can you relate?
- 4. organizational model standard process creates distinct work phases boundaries are the hand-off points between roles product (business) design engineering
- 5. typical product life cycle product (business) design engineering (agile team) PRD UX spec (wall) (wall) customer delivery upon delivery, team disbands and forms into new teams
- 6. what was broken in design? late 2011/early 2012
- 7. deep silos iteration planning done by developers without designer’s involved designers hand off specs without prior involvement of developers developer days (“dev days”) valued over design time frequent WFH days created low energy and less collaboration time hyper-segmentation of products
- 8. broad team distribution geographic distribution created wedges, duplications and blocked collaboration lack of alignment with UED partners (not uncommon to have designers & engineers in same region to be working on different products)
- 9. lack of agile understanding while UED interfaced with agile teams they did not participate directly in agile planning, retrospectives, etc. agile machinery also did not account for experience design
- 10. no strong ownership UED staff in a pooled/studio model instead of a dedicated model once delivery happened the designers moved to another project often engineers did not know who the designer was for a product to ask questions to teams not empowered to make decisions as a gauntlet of other teams had to approve to go live
- 11. what was broken in product? late 2011/early 2012
- 12. no measurement/learn culture in several products there were no key performance indicators to measure & learn against since a/b testing was hard to do, there was no concept of an MVP (minimal viable product)
- 13. feature-itus since the organization rallied around projects instead of products, product tended to try to put as much on the train as possible without kpis you guess more and more (F.O.G.) without measurement you never get rid of features
- 14. too many silos product was divided over 9 different organizations! mobile was also a separate business, product and engineering silo
- 15. what was broken in engineering? late 2011/early 2012
- 16. too many silos just like our counterparts, we were broken into many different organizations mobile was a separate organization
- 17. too hard to go live 37 tickets just to get a bug fixed and pushed to live every organization was set up to say “no” to anything that might be innovative for fear of failure, risk, security issues, etc. no devops, no CI/CD
- 18. technology broken no modern services architecture all solutions were built as silos ui logic and business logic intertwined technology platform assumed developers were not to be trusted
- 19. agile way too granular one product had 20+ agile streams. 12 of these were experience streams. each stream was responsible for one small part of the experience created nightmares of integration created a fractured experience for users
- 20. paypal circa 2011 roll your own. disconnected delivery experience. culture of long shelf life. inward focus. risk averse.
- 21. adopting lean following a build/measure/learn mindset
- 22. lean startup founded on build/measure/learn get out of the building (GOOB) invalidate your risky assumptions go for the minimal viable product (MVP) fail fast, learn fast get to the pivot
- 23. lean ux designing products for build/measure/learn (lean startup) requires 3 rules to be followed at all times get to & maintain a shared understanding form deep collaboration across disciplines keep continuous customer feedback flowing
- 24. engineering focused on learning engineering the build/measure/learn cycle shift the focus to minimal viable everything (MV*) follows the key rules of lean ux: shared understanding deep collaboration continuous customer feedback LEANENGINEERING ApplyingLeanStartupPrinciples to BringDesigntoLife
- 25. hermes project re-inventing checkout with lean ux
- 26. hermes project whiteboard to code code to usability product/design/engineering teams usability/customers lean ux in action
- 27. free to iterate independent of agile user interface engineering - agile scrum team lean ux - lean team track engineering - agile scrum teamsprint 0 usability usability usability usability usability release release release release {agile lean ux can provide a brain for agile
- 28. three key principles that drive lean ux remember these to keep your teams on track
- 29. shared understanding the more understanding the less documentation but this doesn’t mean NO documentation you need whatever is needed to gain a shared understanding
- 30. deep collaboration strong belief that ideas come from many different voices trust is essential all efforts never stray far from collaborative efforts
- 31. continuous customer feedback this is the lifeblood of the team gets rid of politics turns a team outside-in
- 32. lessons learned along the way school of hard knocks
- 33. create a sandbox IMVU allows every engineer to put a test out to 1% of users at netflix we often created additional tests that designers or engineers independently wanted to try as a solution to a hypothesis 1
- 34. hotwire case study how do you protect the parent organization from the internal startup? create a sandbox Source: “Lean Startup in the Hotwire Enterprise” by Kristen Mirenda & Karl Shultz
- 35. hotwire case study: feedback “hate it - can't even sort anymore” “I don't like it because you cannot filter the results or even sort them.. What were you thinking?” “absolutely blows...pure garbage. need to be able to sort asap. i'll come work for you and help you figure it out. wtf.” Source: “Lean Startup in the Hotwire Enterprise” by Kristen Mirenda & Karl Shultz
- 36. hotwire case study: data Source: “Lean Startup in the Hotwire Enterprise” by Kristen Mirenda & Karl Shultz
- 37. move to a “living spec” break down barriers between prototyping and production use developers for prototyping as forcing function embrace RITE avoid tools/process that get away from collaboration 2
- 38. make the spec real there are many, many prototyping tools available now you can create a living spec with these however the fidelity is never the same as real code recommend HTML prototyping (more on this later)
- 39. but what about docs? watch out for “predictive documentation” watch out for documentation that replaces collaboration or is a band-aid for bad process good documentation will enhance collaboration, shared understanding and disseminate learnings
- 40. use a prototype stack whiteboard to code code to usability product/design team user interface engineers usability/customers to enable learning
- 41. use a prototype stack whiteboard to code code to usability product/design team user interface engineers usability/customers to enable learning nodejs JS libraries JS Templating (dustjs) less -> CSS images
- 42. enable sketch to code forcing function it brings about a close collaboration between engineering and design it creates a bridge for shared understanding requires a lot of confidence and transparency
- 43. how lean & agile can play together fuller integration with services, unhappy paths & hardening error handling prototyping happens in rapid succession (lean ux track) services agile scrum teams usability usability usability usability usability release release release release {agile lean ux can provide a brain for agile stories & code shared lean & agile teams should blend together
- 44. engineer for experimentation long shelf life to rapid experimentation focus on learning not on delivery design for volatility refactor the tech stack with learning in mind 3
- 45. experiences must learn All buildings are predictions. All predictions are wrong. There's no escape from this grim syllogism, but it can be softened. Stewart Brand Our software is always tearing itself apart (or should be) Recognize that different layers change at different velocities
- 46. velocity changes by layer recognize that different parts of tech stack change at different velocities “any building is actually a hierarchy of pieces, each of which inherently changes at different rates” - Stewart Brand. How Buildings Learn. design for throwaway-ability (volatility)! “use before you reuse” (optimize for change) utilize packaging or paths to capture experiments
- 47. why start with experience? stay honest & pure by having experience be the driver (not what your boss thinks or what looks good on your resume or what the loudest one in the room thinks) remember use before you reuse let the experience drive the engineering reuse is an engineering optimization. use is what users do. reuse is what engineers do.
- 51. tangled up technology big problem. technology and processes not geared to build/test/learn. refactor your way out of technical and experience debt
- 52. build in rapid experimentation think of the UI layer as “the experimentation layer” early rapid prototyping leads to learnings to get into the right ballpark follow with live A/B Testing. Lots of it. creates a healthy environment with constant customer feedback loops contrast this with “long shelf life” culture
- 53. requirements for lean Stack independent of the backend language flexible enough to run in either the server or in the client equally good at building web sites as it is building web applications pushable outside of the application stack (publish model) cleanly separated from the backend/app code (ideally by JSON) utilize what is common to developers quick & easy to build & tear down components
- 54. 1st step: fire up a prototype stack (nodejs) utilize opens source stack express, connect, require.js bring in javascript templating and other open source ui goodness node.js ui bits prototype stack
- 55. 2nd step: bootstrap with bootstrap able to create a new branded look in a few hours enabled sketch to code node.js ui bits prototype stack
- 56. 3rd step: use javascript templating text templates get compiled to javascript <p>Hello {name}</p> dustjs templates execute wherever there is javascript templates = JS {dust} JavaScript compiles to... javascript is evaluated to render ui
- 57. 4th step: make ui bits portable to legacy JS templating can be run in client browser or server on the production stack we can drag & drop the ui bits from prototyping stack to the production stack rhinoscript enabled stack parity java (rhinoscript)node.js {dust} JS template prototype stack production stack {dust} JS template client OR server either stack
- 58. 5th step: build on open source kraken prototype & production stack contains “webcore” for scaffolding and providing a lightweight framework for dev & production nconf async q supertest
- 59. github love
- 60. 6th step: bring node to production project kraken enable all of the standard paypal services WITHOUT looking like PayPal but do it in a friendly npm way monitoring, logging, security, content, locale resolution, analytics, authentication, template rendering, experimentation, packaging, application framework, deployment, session management, service access, etc. simplifies creating an app in a few minutes with all paypal services
- 61. java (rhinoscript) production stack {dust} JS template 7th step: one stack to rule them all node.js {dust} JS template prototype stack
- 62. java (rhinoscript) production stack {dust} JS template 7th step: one stack to rule them all node.js {dust} JS template prototype stack
- 63. give agile a brain use lean ux as the brain for agile develop a lean cadence involve all members in lean ux (balanced teams) 4
- 64. free to iterate independent of agile user interface engineering - agile scrum team lean ux - lean team track engineering - agile scrum teamsprint 0 usability usability usability usability usability release release release release {agile lean ux can provide a brain for agile
- 65. free to test frequently with users
- 66. sprint faster focus on getting to customer as early and as often as possible removes the politics in the team as this becomes the arbiter you can slow down this cadence after you converge on key hypotheses and potential solutions
- 67. example: spotify squads run like lean startups
- 68. spotify: squad similar to scrum team. feels like startup long term mission: build & improve the product. stay long term on the product. apply lean startup principles like MVP “think it, build it, ship it, tweak it” emphasis on great workspace
- 69. spotify: tribes collection of squads that work in a related area incubators for tribes hold regular gatherings
- 70. spotify: chapters and guilds chapters represent horizontal practices within a tribe guilds represent horizontal practices across tribes
- 71. become hypothesis driven learn to state design goals in terms of solving specific customer problems don’t be afraid to invalidate hypotheses look for the pivot 5
- 72. embrace the problem not the solution engineering: don’t start with technology, start with experience design: get your ideas out early together: get in front of customers so problem is the focus, not our current solution 6
- 73. co-locate if at all possible high bandwidth “meatspace” facilitates shared understanding and deep collaboration also facilitates shared time with the customer 7
- 74. suggestions at a minimum teams should come together for the first few weeks to build shared understanding, deep collaboration and getting feedback from customers for distributed members use high bandwidth communication where possible (skype, tele-presence) high bandwidth communication necessary.
- 75. github counterpoint electronic: discussion, planning and operations process should be in high fidelity electronics. available: work should be visible and expose process. work should have a URL. single source truth. asynchronous: almost nothing should require direct interruption. lock-free: avoid synchronization points. cooperation without coordination http://tomayko.com/writings/adopt-an-open-source-process-constraints
- 76. tools that can help
- 77. tools technologies (or lack thereof) that can help your team stay lean
- 78. tools sketching/whiteboard paper prototyping patterns and visual design ui software prototyping
- 79. sketching and whiteboarding rapid ideation throw away validation shared understanding use as a part of deliverable stop talking, start drawing
- 80. paper prototyping easy to go from paper to production validate interactions makes it easer and faster for developers to understand. paints a clearer picture to business partners. super fast
- 82. code prototypes vs ui prototyping software? use the right tool at the right time as you get closer to agile axure, proto.io, POP and a host of other prototyping tools are amazing -- especially early in the learning cycle code prototypes important once you get close into the actual agile sprints provide high fidelity to the user testing faster cycle from “learning to live”
- 83. suggestions for code prototyping bootstrap is one of the quickest to get going with we use it on our production stack as well jetstrap allows you to drag and drop a bootstrap page to get a quick start nodejs is really powerful for prototyping your full application (web, tablet, desktop)
- 84. why templating is cool for prototyping start with simple html mock for the page convert to template: sprinkle in data placeholders, iterations throw some mock json data in and you have a prototype same template when generated with real json data from services is the live experience
- 85. patterns & visual language patterns enable rapid development refine over time ensure consistency speed up design
- 86. three key principles that drive lean ux remember these to keep your teams on track
- 87. shared understanding the more understanding the less documentation but this doesn’t mean NO documentation you need whatever is needed to gain a shared understanding
- 88. deep collaboration strong belief that ideas come from many different voices trust is essential all efforts never stray far from collaborative efforts
- 89. continuous customer feedback this is the lifeblood of the team gets rid of politics turns a team outside-in