Combining Scrum and Design Thinking in Software Project Management

Recep Yalçınrecep.yalcn@gmail.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/recepyalcin

Agenda

Relay Race vs Rugby Approach Hermeneutic Circle Scrum Design Thinking Reasons of the Hybrid Model How What will combination provide? Challenges Usage Examples Schedule Q&A

Relay Race vs Rugby Approach

“The… ‘relay race’ approach to product development…may conflict with the goals of maximum speed and flexibility. Instead a holistic or ‘rugby’ approach—where a team tries to go the distance as a unit, passing the ball back and forth—may better serve today’s competitive requirements.”

Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka,

“The New New Product Development Game”, Ha rva rd

Bus ine s s Re vie w , January 1986.

Hermeneutic Circle

Hermeneutic Circle is the process of moving between abstract models and concrete evidence in order to grasp the real meaning of a situation.

Agile Engineering and Design Thinking are essentially same thing, Hermeneutic Circle.

Scrum

Scrum is an agile process that allows us to focus on delivering the highest business value in the shortest time Teams self-organize to determine the best way to deliver the highest priority features. Every two weeks to a month anyone can see real working software and decide to release it as is or continue to enhance it for another sprint. Necessitates problem solving & analytical skills.

Scrum

Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a human-centered, rapid prototype based innovation method. Its main idea is to develop a solution in close exchange with stakeholders and target users to ensure desirability, viability, and feasibility of the final solution. The methodology provides a process framework that allows for constant communication between the developing team and stakeholders & target users. Out-of-the box thinking, and interdisciplinary teams required. DT was adapted for business purposes by David M. Kelley (Stanford, IDEO)

Design Thinking

Reasons of the Hybrid Model

Scrum provides time-to-market delivery. DT provides human-centric products, and innovation. Agile processes speed-up development process but requirements engineering is treated as a black-box. In some cases, Agile is not enough alone, some hybrid models are already developed; Scrumban for maintenance projects. For user-centric or innovative organizations, Scrum&Design Thinking are a great match. Scrum helps us to “do the things right”, DT helps us to “do the right things”

Proposed Models – Design Sprints

Using common features of two processes; Customer focus, Iterativeness, Learn/apply cycles

Using best practices of processes.

Result can be; Recursive, Nested, Predecessor-successor models.

Proposed Models – Design Sprints

Product Owner is responsinle to decide which sprint type is applicable.

Proposed Models – Design Planning Meetings

Using common features of two processes; Customer focus, Iterativeness, Learn/apply cycles

Using best practices of processes.

Result can be; Recursive, Nested, Predecessor-successor models.

Proposed Models – Design Planning Meetings

Measurement Methods

Hypothesis-Driven Development

Instead of traditional user story framework:

As A... <role>I Want... <goal/desire>

So That... <receive benefit>

Hypothesis-Driven Development should be used:

We Believe That... <this capability>Will Result In... <this outcome>

We will Know We Have Succeeded When... <we see a measurable signal>

Measurement Methods

Hypothesis-Driven DevelopmentWe believe <this capability>What functionality we will develop to test our hypothesis? By defining a ‘test’ capability of the product or service that we are attempting to build, we identify the functionality and hypothesis we want to test.

Will result in <this outcome>What is the expected outcome of our experiment? What is the specific result we expect to achieve by building the ‘test’ capability?

We will know we have succeeded when <we see a measurable signal>What signals will indicate that the capability we have built is effective? What key metrics (qualitative or quantitative) we will measure to provide evidence that our experiment has succeeded and give us enough confidence to move to the next stage.

Measurement Methods

Data Analysis Sessions

- Usage statistics, usage paths, usage demographics and failure statistics are recorded in data analytic tools- Recorded data are reviewed in data analysis sessions.

Can be inserted in 2 ways:- Additional Data Analysis Meeting could be inserted to Scrum Sprints. - Scrum Retrospective Meeting content could be extended to cover Data Analysis.

What will combination provide?

Innovative and user-centric solutions could be created for software-based products, Correct application of Design thinking could lead correct requirement gathering, and prevent wasted time to implement wrong requirements, Known problems of Scrum, like quality issues, could be diminished by successful solution finding approaches of DT, Usage of both analytical and creative abilities.

Resources

- An Introduction to Design Thinking Process Guide- Manifesto for Agile Software Development, 2001- Wikipedia- Jumpstarting Scrum with Design Thinking, 2013, Christophe Vetterli, Barbara Stortz, Franziska Häger- Map and Territory Article, 2013, Maurice McGinley- Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka, “The New New Product Development Game”, Harvard Business Review, January 1986.- Tobias Hildenbrand, SAP, “Building the Right Solutions Right”, March 2013- Jens Broetzman, SAP, “Design Thinking & Agile”, December 2013

Q&A