NN/g virtual UX training: Product and UX

Agile

In most modern software projects, the development teams work agile on the product. A product owner supports the teams with strategy from the business and keeps stakeholders up close. A project leader supports the team with sufficient resources and deals with operational challenges. UX often overlaps on the product- and business strategy and implies architectural choices. 

As UX consultant, I’m involved in product development teams as member or as a stakeholder. Over the past years, I’ve got plenty experience in executing all kind of roles as product owner, project leader, UX designer/researcher and developer. Sometimes even multiple at once. I observe processes as second nature and often I’m not even aware of doing so, until things start to stand out to me that could use some nudging. 

Before that’s even possible, you need to emphasize or understand the goals and values of all parties. As UX-er, that’s exactly what’s get me sparked. I also like to have some basic understanding of things. That works for me as it broadens my frame of reference. I tend to look at topics from multiple angles at a holistically and focused level.

Getting new insights from this course

From the product owner perspective, I wanted to see if I could learn some new insights in the NN/g training by learning from the other participants experiences in a similar role. For me that is the best gain of the trainings by NN/g: the cooperation and discussions with participants throughout the course. It all used to be in person, which in my experience is still the most effective way to learn new skills and insights, but during the online sessions on Miro it works quite well. The moderated timeframe through the break-out rooms can kill a good conversation, that might feel less of a hard cut of while in-person.

Learnings

Product owner and UX professional share tasks that overlap. But this doesn’t mean the results of their tasks share the same outcome. They should be complementary. And for it to do so, both PO and UX need to align their processes, goals and results or outcomes. For example: both should be doing some form of user research to gain understanding of user needs and goals for a product. I might expect that both focus on different areas of interest, but also overlap in generic info. The combination of both efforts should result in a good understanding of what’s needed to support the user’s needs. As this sounds quite expectable, it pointed me out that some of the recent projects I’ve worked on, had to many silos in them. Therefore, I’m looking forward to be more aware of and make sure to breakdown those silos.