When George Bernard Shaw wrote “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place” he could have been talking to anyone working in UX or design. Communicating goals and ideas to a diverse team is hard. We communicate across the fields of development, security, management, marketing, design and UX, the […]
The false promise of the Design Sprint
The existence of the design sprint is interesting because it directly speaks to the challenges we face integrating design into our teams and projects. Much has been written about whether the design sprint is a true sprint (nope, but who cares [1]) but less has been said about why they exist in the first place, […]
Sketching with code: the prototype primer
Prototyping is at the heart of No Handoff. Following is a quick primer on how a prototype sets the stage for eliminating unnecessary handoff. Not everyone can understand a technical spec sheet or can translate a vision statement into actionable items; everyone understands a website. Prototyping from the earliest stages of a project makes communication […]
Sprint 0 offers zero value.
If you work in web development chances are you are using some form of agile. A current trend is the “Sprint 0”. What is it? Why has it stuck around? And why does it offer so little value to the agile project? Sprint 0 is often what the period before diving into the iterative agile […]
Dual-track agile is a game-changer for designers
As a UX manager I have found one of the stickiest challenges I face is fully integrating design and development teams. The pace of each discipline is different, so is their vocabulary, the information that drives their work, and their intermediate goals. I developed the no-handoff agile method to address these challenges, and one of […]
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No-handoff cheat sheet
In the no-handoff approach all disciplines revolve around improving the end user experience. They work together from day 1 to day infinity, with no handoff periods in between. To achieve the mental shifts required and promote fuller team integration I take three simple steps – a shared vocabulary, shared goals, and a shared primary communication […]
No Handoff: close the gap between product and engineering
While agile broke down barriers between development processes and business goals, the handoff between Product and Engineering teams still persists. Ahh… Project handoff. That universally hated period of inefficiency and frustration, throwing your work over the fence hoping there is someone on the other side to catch it. Imagine a project where teams work together […]
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Never say the word “design” again
Banish the word “design” from your web vocabulary and reap the rewards! […]