Cybersecurity, Scrum, and UX: How Scrum with UX Can Create Safer and More Secure Technologies

Scrum with UX can create safer and more secure technologies by helping to ensure that cybersecurity considerations are included in all stages of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), and most importantly, security is ‘built-in.’

The need for better cybersecurity is paramount in today’s digital world. As our world becomes increasingly digital, the potential for cybercrime and cyberattacks grows and depends on how we use and build software products. A secure software used in an unsafe way can lead to a potential data breach, and that is where Scrum with UX can help create a secure development process and user experience. This way, cybersecurity risks can be identified and mitigated and managed early on before they cause any devastation. UX stands for 'User Experience' and is a process used by developers and design teams to create products and services that provides a meaningful way to how people interact with software and give them a better experience.

Additionally, Scrum can help developers to work more collaboratively with security experts. Scrum is an agile software development framework that can develop and deliver products and services iteratively and incrementally. It emphasizes team collaboration, customer feedback, and continuous improvement. When combined with UX, Scrum can help create technologies that are not only more user-friendly but also more secure.

A Scrum and Car Analogy: Buying a Car is Not Enough!

Yes, you read it right. Buying a car is not enough. You must know how to drive it safely (‘do it by yourself’) to use it for the intended purpose or hire a driver who can drive it safely (‘hiring an expert’). You decide on a budget, decide your usage and evaluate the risk of a potential break down or accidents (whether you’ll mostly be driving it from home or to the office and vice versa or if you’ll often be crossing through some rough terrain or a busy highway), any weather conditions and who else in the family will be using it, along with their driving experience.?

You decide on what safety features you need based on your risk analysis, risk impact, probability of risk taking place, and your budget. The most important part here is to continue evaluating your risk environment and keep adding on extra features as your environment changes, such as buying an insurance policy or enhancing the coverage if you already have one. Can you relate the above process to an iterative Scrum approach for UX design, and how you implement it for software development to make it more secure and keep improving on the user experience part?

UX in Agile Teams

UX is a critical component of any Agile team. However, agile teams can easily become bogged down in the process without a strong UX focus and lose sight of the user's needs. A good UX designer will work closely with the development team and scrum professionals to ensure that users' needs are always kept in mind.

They will also work to create prototypes and mockups that can be used to test new features and functionality. The goal of UX in Agile is to help the team move faster and be more responsive to user feedback. As a result, agile teams can build better products that meet the specifications by keeping users at the center of everything they do.

Using Lean UX to Integrate UX within an Agile Context

Lean UX is a design approach that brings the true nature of a product to light faster, in a collaborative, cross-functional and user-centered way. Lean UX also supports a shared understanding by bringing all the stakeholders onto the same page early on and to create a more user-centric culture within the organization, where the focus is on delivering value to the user rather than on following a rigid process.

Lean UX is based on the principle of "continuous discovery," which means that the team constantly learns about the user and the problem domain. This knowledge is then used to inform the design of the solution.

How Scrum with UX Can Create Safer and More Secure Technologies

Scrum can help identify and address potential cybersecurity risks early in the development process. By involving UX experts in the scrum process, it is possible to create more user-friendly technologies and thus less likely to be exploited.

1.???Planning Ahead for Security

In today's business environment, security is a top priority for organizations of all sizes. However, with the ever-changing landscape of security threats, staying ahead of the curve cannot be easy. One way to ensure that your organization is prepared for whatever security threats may come your way is to integrate Scrum and UX into your security planning. While iteratively working on UX, scrum allows you to incorporate threat-modelling or vulnerability assessment in the early phases of design and see what aspects of user behavior or software experience can pose a threat or help adversaries exploit any user behavior or action related vulnerabilities.

Scrum is an empirical framework that emphasizes collaboration, flexibility, and continuous improvement. On the other hand, UX, or user experience, is all about creating products that provide a great experience for users. By combining these two approaches, you can create a security plan that is proactive and responsive to the ever-changing security landscape.

2.???Building Secure-by-Design Products

One of the key principles of Scrum is that security must be considered throughout the software development process, from initial concept through final delivery. Therefore, to build security into your design using Scrum, you need to ensure that security is considered during each sprint and is part of DoD (Definition of Done). Your team should discuss possible security risks and solutions during the backlog refinement. The security team should review any changes implemented during the sprint review meeting. In addition, it is important to have a dedicated security representative on the Scrum team who can help identify and mitigate risks.

Scrum and UX can help you build security into your design. For example, security risks can be identified and prioritized during the product backlog refinement process. UX designers can also help by creating user flows that consider security. During testing, it's important to test for security vulnerabilities.

3.???Early Customer Engagement?

When building security into your design with Scrum and UX, it is important to keep three things in mind: customer engagement, transparency, and collaboration. Customer engagement is key to understanding what your users need and want from your product. It is important to get feedback early and often to ensure that your product meets their needs.

Scrum can be a great tool for this, as it encourages close collaboration between the development team and the product owner. This collaboration ensures that everyone is on the same page and that feedback can be quickly incorporated into the product. Transparency is also important when building security into your design.??

4.???Collaboration is The Key to Achieve Results

When you're working on a project with a team, there are many moving parts. As a result, it can be difficult to keep everyone on the same page, especially when deadlines are looming. But with a little planning and some Scrum techniques, Scrum professionals can help your team collaborate more effectively and get the job done.

The Scrum framework is a great way to improve team collaboration and communication. When used correctly, it can help teams work together more effectively and efficiently. Using Scrum can help your team break down a project into manageable pieces and then track and monitor progress.

Final Words

In conclusion, Scrum with UX can help create technologies that are more user-friendly and more secure. In addition, by involving user experience designers in the Scrum process, development teams can create products that anticipate and address user needs and concerns, including those related to cybersecurity. In addition, Scrum with UX can help reduce the risk of cyberattacks by identifying and addressing potential security vulnerabilities during the product development process.

References

How to integrate UX design into the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). (n.d.). Userzoom.Com. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://www.userzoom.com/ux-library/three-things-we-learnt-about-integrating-ux-design/

Objartel, M. (2020, November 16). Scrum and UX-design. UX Collective. https://uxdesign.cc/scrum-and-ux-design-c8869ce2bab5

The UX runway - integrating UX, Lean and scrum cohesively. (n.d.). Methodsandtools.Com. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/uxrunway.php

Unleash the UI/UX power in Scrum. (n.d.). Big Agile. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://big-agile.com/blog/2021/unleash-the-ui-ux-power-in-scrum