Agile Product Design
As a Lead UX designer at Rightscale in 2015, I was able to work in a remote-first software startup that practices Agile Scrum. For 1.5 years, I worked closely with the head of product, head of design and engineering lead as well as the scrum master on my squad and learnt how to implement and run projects on Scrum. I have carried these learnings with me past my tenure at Rightscale and have successfully implemented Agile project principles with my team at Experience PLC, and for various clients while working at Fractal Ink.
Digital Transformation projects in particular work well in Agile, where the environment of constant change and the need to respond to change at speed is of utmost importance. I’ve had the privilege and joy of working alongside some very talented Agile Coaches who have provided advice and guidance about the right way of working in different situations and have provided me with a wealth of experience I now use on my own to advise my clients about how to run their projects on Agile.
DesignOps
An offshoot of the Agile Product Development world was the idea of DesignOps spearheaded by Dave Malouf in 2014. I was lucky enough to be part of the Design community where he and his colleagues discussed much of what would be the foundation of DesignOps. As a result of this, I have a unique inside understanding of the basic principles of DesignOps and how to implement it. While very few clients have the appetite or the budget for a dedicated design ops implementation, the basic principles of DesignOps are helpful in any project and have enabled me to run my projects better with benefits such as faster design times, easier handovers with developers, reduced design debt, organised file systems, and improved cross-team collaboration.