NN/g virtual UX training: Agile product development
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As UX consultant, often I’m asked how UX should fit into the agile project approach. In this course by NN/g I intended to verify if my personal experience would match theirs. I was happy to find out it did, at least in some way.
Most books on agile product development cover all forms of software development related competencies. Numerous forms of types of developers, testers and all kind of stakeholders internally and externally get covered. But the UX knowledge domain is often slightly hinted or simply overlooked.
In general, I find the trainings by NN/g to be insightful. You don’t always have to learn new things for a training to be effective. It’s also fine to gain names or labels for things you were already doing. Like being unconsciously competent. That’s exactly how I feel on the agile topic. I’ve been working in and for agile oriented teams for over 20 years now. During those years, I’ve been in some generic courses about agile, but none of them ever covered the UX topic (properly).
Findings
My biggest finding from this course is the fact that most agile teams and trainings and books somehow assume that clients through product owners do all the discovery work and feed the team with actionable assignments. Therefore, I think UX consultants should focus on the workload before things enter the view of the development team. Supporting the product owner and architects is what needed most besides supporting the team with design and guiding based on research.
I would recommend this course to any member involved in an agile product development process. Even if it is just to get a glance of the entire playfield.