How often should we get feedback from the user/customer? In too many projects user feedback is something that is "nice to have", or collected at the end of the sprint from project stakeholders who may not even speak to the customers/users. The problem: The lack of feedback means we walk a precarious tight rope of creating something customers/users do not want and may not even get used. What are embedded user feedback loops? An embedded user feedback loop looks at collecting f

I've recently observed that sometimes when a team achieves success using agility, management and the team think they no longer require any further coaching, often resulting in the scrum master role disappearing. So is a Scrum Master needed? My response to this question is (as usual) it depends. Below are a few questions to ask. What does a Scrum Master do? "The Scrum Master is responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. Scrum Masters do this

Why don't departments which work directly with customers (i.e. Marketing, Sales, and Operations) typically talk about agility? The question is, what do these departments actually care about? The Problem The problem is when businesses think of these things, they don’t think of agility as the solution. Typically the 'business' will set up an improvement program to address a whole raft of internal and external pain points. The challenge for them is to determine which pain points

I recently had the fortune of completing an engagement delivering current and future state customer journey, and an experience design capability uplift. Coming from a background in agile coaching software development teams, putting on the design thinking hat was a fascinating experience. The CXD Labs ‘Customer Value Framework’ shares a similar process to the Design thinking approach popularised by IDEO; except it includes the 'operate' phase of the customer's experience. Desi

Every team I have coached started with the same attitude. Only the testers estimate on testing tasks and do the testing and only developers do coding and so on. In an attempt to be ‘efficient’ we lock ourselves into these expert titles which become straitjackets for creativity. Immense energy is wasted worrying about making mistakes in their area of expertise, and we forget about the customer experience. The problem - The ‘expert’ paradigm I recently read the book ‘The Art of

Customer Experience (CX) used as a tool to ensure Agile development teams are building the right solution for the customer and their needs.