What will we use re: Agile moving forward in our own work and at ID?

[k8forz]

• [x] Kait
• [x] Julian
• [x] Arijit
• [x] Sanhyong

[arijit1035]

I intend to use Agile practices for the following cases in the future:

• Using the social contract document as the starting point to understand each others expectations and commitment towards the project.

• Keeping peers aligned during the entire project timeline when I am working in an interdisciplinary team as the kanban allows monitoring of each others work in realtime.

• Will try to make Agile the backend system maintaining the design solution implementation, as it enables rapid iteration and improvement of the product or service in background while my design thinking skills can be used for finding new avenues of user experience.

• The Kanban and Repository will allow everyone to see the goals and ideas for the project, I will try to use this feature to include non designers in the synthesis & ideation phase to make the insights and ideas more holistic and get higher engagement from the team.

[SanhyongPark]

I intend to use Agile practices for the following cases in the future:

1. Manage and improve my portfolio: Use Kanban to decompose my portfolio goals into smaller work items. Keep iterating on each item based on feedback from experienced designers and manage time by prioritizing issues.

2. I will seek opportunities to use Agile practices to collaborate with team members in my summer internship.

3. I will use Agile mindset in my daily life to help me identify the uncertainty I’m facing and figure out how to adapt as I go along.

[walkoutthebox]

Agile Culture

Two things that I'll definitely carry with me are the social contract and the team reflections. I've worked on and managed teams and I think this practice of collectively creating a social contract is a powerful way to set expectations for team interactions and participation. Key to this for me is the explicit and collective understanding as well as the feeling of ownership thats cultivated through this shared process. The team reflection offers an opportunity to not only continuously improve team dynamics but it also offers the opportunity to create an environment where team members feel comfortable publicly addressing issues that they feel are negatively affecting the team.

I think this idea of collectively understanding and documenting relationship dynamics and expectations is something that goes beyond even working with teams. There was an article in HBR, "A new Approach to Contracts" (Oct 2019), where they introduced this same type of collective understanding toward developing better long term strategic partnerships. Coming from a career in contract/ supplier management this makes all of the sense in the world, a preventative approach that promotes flourishing vs a detective/reactive approach which often times results in conflict.

Agile Methodology

I also very much appreciate the idea of using the Goal -> Hill -> Subhill -> Story framework to provide a clear way to ensure the product your making is in line with the vision/goal that was developed during the design process. It also provides a system of accountability, and a gain collective understanding for the entire team and provides space to question asks or decisions that don't seem to be in line with the goal. In doing so, it lends itself to decentralization in organizational structure, something that I'm fan of.

I came to design school because I would like to at some point get into the startup space as an entrepreneur and I think many aspects of agile will be useful in those endeavors. I've seen some founders somewhat flounder because the work isn't tied to a goal. The Goal/subhill work flow as well as the practices geared toward eliminating waste in the workflow will come in handy.

[k8forz]

What will I use re: Agile moving forward in my own work

• The social contract, team reflections, and Kanban are useful project management and team alignment tools that gave definition and consensus to our team's work this semester.

• Overall, Agile’s emphasis on traceability in the overall workflow through subdividing tasks into units of work is something I plan to take with me in future team work. It makes the overall thread of the project evident as you go.

[SanhyongPark]

We intend to use Agile Culture to move things forward in the following cases in the future:

• Use a social contract to have a collective understanding as well as the feeling of ownership.

• Use the team reflection to continuously improve team dynamics.

• Use the Goal -> Hill -> Subhill -> Story framework to ensure goal alignment.

• Take advantage of Agile’s emphasis on traceability in the overall workflow.

• Make Agile the backend system maintaining the design solution implementation.