TC Design
How UX can support the sprint review
- Allison Batoff
Over the past few months, Marine and Civil Aviation teams have been working to improve their sprint reviews. Teams have been focusing on small increments of work, and speaking about outcomes and what their team has learned. The sprint review is a critical ceremony to get engagement and decision-making from users and stakeholders. So, what can we do as UX designers and researchers to contribute to this process?
Present work that supports the sprint outcomes
Presenting our discovery and research findings during sprint reviews is a great way to inspire conversations and get engagement. However, if the research results are not going to be acted on for a few sprints, it can be difficult for users and stakeholders to understand the value of this learning. They may wonder, “What does this mean for the product?” or “How are these pain points going to be resolved?”
One effective approach is presenting the discovery and research results that support the outcomes being delivered in the current sprint. Even if the research took place in previous sprints, presenting it alongside the work that it informed can help tell a compelling story. The story could follow this format:
This was the problem we identified;
This is what we learned from our users;
These were the opportunities we defined;
This is the solution we came up with; and
This is how we are going to measure whether this solution is successful.
If you are looking for guidance on communicating your work to team members, users and stakeholders, there are some excellent books on this topic, including, Communicating the UX Vision by Martina Schell and James O'Brien and Articulating Design Decisions by Tom Greever.
Facilitating user participation
While not a substitute for usability testing, having users demo new work in a sprint review is an excellent way to collect feedback. These demos can also increase engagement since users are actively participating, rather than listening to someone on the product team speak or show the work. As a UX designer or researcher, you can help facilitate this by:
Reaching out to your users to seek volunteers;
Drafting the scenarios your users will try during the review; and
Setting expectations that you are testing the software and not testing them.
If your goal is to assess both the usefulness and usability of the work, it can be worth reminding the product team not to prompt the user with instructions or tips during the demo. If the user struggles to complete the task, this is valuable information that may get missed if the instructions are too prescriptive.
If this is something your team is interested in trying, we encourage you to speak to other teams in Marine and Civil Aviation who are achieving positive results with user demos, such as Team Poseidon.
Sharing metrics
Finally, we have heard success stories from teams who have used metrics as conversation starters in sprint reviews. Designers have reported that centering the conversation around metrics allows them to have more productive discussions with their users and stakeholders about outcomes, rather than subjective opinions. Discussing metrics allows them to more easily get stakeholder buy-in on decisions and prioritize product improvements. Revisiting these metrics across sprint reviews can also help highlight progress across iterations.
Examples of metrics include:
Objective performance metrics
Successful task completion
Time to complete task
Number of tasks to reach a goal
Frequency of system crash/failure
Subjective perception metrics
System usability scale (SUS)
Net promotor score (NPS)
Impact on the organization metrics
Expenses incurred
Training required
Number of people and time required to support end-users
Number of calls to Transport Canada for support
Amount of overtime required
Number of employees required
Resources
Usability Metrics (nngroup.com)
Measuring Usability with the System Usability Scale (SUS) – MeasuringU
What is Net Promoter Score (NPS)? How to Calculate & Interpret (hotjar.com)
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