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Best Practices for Design x Engineer Collaboration

Elis / Global Case Management CoP

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Current Challenges

Misalignment with design and delivery teams – Elis designer, TDD CoP Retro

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Solutions are not implemented how we designed them

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Engineers often jump to solutions before understanding the problem or validating hypotheses

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Engineers think about what is best for the system when implementing, not what is best for the user

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“Designers don’t always understand what is going to break the system” – Global Engineer

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Any others?

GLOBAL

RAIO CASE MANAGEMENT

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Why it Matters

Alignment on user needs

Decreased wasted time for engineers building the wrong thing

Alignment on technical feasibility

Decreased wasted time for designers designing / researching solutions that cannot be implemented

GLOBAL

RAIO CASE MANAGEMENT

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But don’t we practice human-centered design, not developer centered design?

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The Balanced Team Approach

Design

Does this meet our user’s needs?

Engineering

Can we build this in a reasonable amount of time?

Product Management

Does this accomplish business priorities?

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The Balanced Team Approach

Design

Does this meet our user’s needs?

Engineering

Can we build this in a reasonable amount of time?

Feasible solutions that meet our user’s needs

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Methods

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Method 1: Pairing

What is pairing? 

Working together as equal thought partners to get things done

Two brains on one problem

Collaborating on the same design, code, test, etc.

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What is NOT pairing 

Checking in on work that has been accomplished separately 

Critiques / Design reviews

Show and tell

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Why do we pair?

Higher quality outputs

Reduces risk 

Spread knowledge about how / why things were built / designed

Another brain when solving problems

Reduces communication gaps and overhead

Feasible solutions that meet our user’s needs

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Roles When Pairing

Driver

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Uses keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen

Controls the main actions of the computer

Takes advice from navigator

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Navigator

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Focuses on the wider goals of the task

Provides guidance, spots errors, problem solves

Asks clarifying questions and makes suggestions

Feasible solutions that meet our user’s needs

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Method 2: Design Studio

What is a design studio? 

Brainstorming to understand a problem from different team perspectives

Generate many solution using a scenario as a guide

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Why do it?

Encourage cross-disciplinary roles to think deeply about a problem

Discover more unknowns than if a designer sketched alone

Engineers understand where the product is going

Save time later when we create the product as a team

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When do it?

After understanding user problems from discovery research

Generate areas to explore prior to solutioning

Generate larger number of ideas to address more granular user needs later

Feasible solutions that meet our user’s needs

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How to Run a Design Studio

Sample Agenda 

  1. Start with a creative icebreaker to enable participants to get into a creative headspace that is free of judgement and fear.
    1. "How might we visually communicate the number 12?"
    2. Incorporate the whiteboarding tool so participants get accustomed to creating sticky notes / text (if applicable)
  2. Define problem you are solving from synthesized research.
  3. Instruct participants to fold sheets of paper into 4 sections or make equal sections in Freehand board.
  4. Set timer for 2 minutes per square and have all participants generate ideas using a prompt
    • "How might we design an experience that addresses [the problem]".
  5. Have back up prompts if participants get stuck 
    • "What is the antigoal, if we were to design the worst solution for the users, what would that look like?"
    • Assign each participant a random company. "If [random company] designed a solution for this problem, what would that look like?"
  6. Ask each participant to share ideas.
  7. Do a second round of idea generation. This time, participants take the ideas they liked and take them further.
  8. Have each participant share out again.
  9. Give each participant an appropriate number of dots to vote on ideas (ex: if there are 4 participants, give each participant 2 dots).
  10. When voting is complete, look for clusters and discuss. Ask participants to explain rationale behind votes. 

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What Good Looks Like

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Problem Discovery

Brainstorm Solutions

Solution Validation

Implementation Planning

Implementation

Post Implementation Validation

Invite engineers to discovery research sessions

Share research readout with engineers

Facilitate brainstorming session (ex: design studio)

Invite engineers to usability testing sessions

Share findings from usability tests

Share prototypes with engineers prior to usability testing

Pairing: Driver in Sketch / Axure files

Share validated solutions with engineers prior to IPM

Pairing: Driver in Inspect tool

Invite engineers to post implementation research sessions

Designers share findings from research with engineers

Stage

Designer Actions

Engineer Actions

Understand user needs

Attend usability testing sessions

Pairing: Navigator to provide feedback and ideas on feasibility

Understand user needs

Provide feedback and ideas on feasibility

Attend discovery research sessions

Pairing: Navigator to provide feedback and ideas on user needs

Attend post implementation sessions

Product Development Lifecycle

Attend brainstorming session (ex: design studio)

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Challenges

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Common Challenges

Engineers don’t want to attend research sessions

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Engineers interrupt research sessions with leading questions to users

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Engineers just draw system diagrams in brainstorming sessions

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Engineers push back on solutions

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Any others?

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What you can do

Engineers don’t want to attend research sessions

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Engineers interrupt research sessions with leading questions to users

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Engineers just draw system diagrams in brainstorming sessions

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Engineers push back on solutions

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Any others?

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Create a research readout to share synthesized findings with engineers

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What you can do

Engineers don’t want to attend research sessions

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Engineers interrupt research sessions with leading questions to users

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Engineers just draw system diagrams in brainstorming sessions

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Engineers push back on solutions

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Any others?

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Play a moderator role and open the discussion for additional questions

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Ask engineers to direct message you their questions Teams. 

Rephrase the question, showing engineers how to not ask leading questions.

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What you can do

Engineers don’t want to attend research sessions

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Engineers interrupt research sessions with leading questions to users

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Engineers just draw system diagrams in brainstorming sessions

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Engineers push back on solutions

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Any others?

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Pair with the engineer to understand the solution and what it might look like

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What you can do

Engineers don’t want to attend research sessions

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Engineers interrupt research sessions with leading questions to users

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Engineers just draw system diagrams in brainstorming sessions

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Engineers push back on solutions

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Any others?

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Ask “What is your idea on how we might solve this problem for the user?”

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Questions?

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Additional Resources

How-to guides

Design Studio

Usability Testing

User Research

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Readings

Why we pair on the Global Team

Providing Effective Feedback

Practice Talks

Lean Product Management

Human Centered Design

Pairing

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Videos

Intro to Lean Methodology

Balanced Teams

GLOBAL

RAIO CASE MANAGEMENT