In this presentation filmed during ThoughtWorks’ Quarterly Technology Briefing, Dave Robertson and John Johnston explain what the Agile and User Centered Design’s (UCD) common denominators are, value being the most important one in their opinion.
Watch: Agile Methods and Used Centered Design (53 min.)
So far, the signal per noise ratio in communication between agile developers and UCD designers is still low. There are mixed teams at ThoughtWorks where the two sides work together, but they are striving to find the best patterns to be applied. Most such teams are getting along pretty well, some teams are even productive, but they would like to reach a point where they become innovative.
After an introduction to UCD and Agile, the presenters talk about building a future together. Topics like Roles and Methods have been covered, but what needs to be done is to find the common Values: People, Creativity, Iteration, Delivery. They continue by detailing each of these values from the UCD and Agile perspective. The conclusion is that both parties have lots in common and should agree on the importance of User Experience (UX), dropping the differences between them and acting like birds of a feather.