I’ve spent the last 16 months at a clients offices, working on a very large and complex UX project for an ecommerce site. The original planning – along with a couple of smaller lead in projects – was done using the Agile methodology. They were very successful projects. When the main project began, the organization decided that Lean project management was the way to go. And it worked.
We’re naturally lean.
Our office is small, the eight of us can easily converse and brainstorm with any other member of the team within seconds. None of us like paper work so we keep it pretty much all on screen and meet in small groups regularly.
When you consider what can happen with large organizations; a team coming from the client side, their tech partner and us, the small UX and design agency, you can imagine that there were numerous challenges to overcome. Putting everyone in the same room – aside from the noise level – was the right idea.
Backend programmers don’t always understand front-end design or why they would need to put in an extra half a day to make something work better for a client. They just see complications. BUT… but if you’re in the same room and can show them a wireframe to explain the difference, you’re weeks ahead of the game. Even better, when your most cherished UX desire actually means more than a half day of development, they can explain their problem. This opens the opportunity for discussion and evolving to a solution that can work for everyone – especially the client. It sure is better than an outright NO.