Design Thinking & its Integration with Agile framework

With the advancement in the technology sector, the IT industry has seen rapid growth over the past few years in developing and delivering software products and services. There is no doubt that in the coming future, people will be mostly dependent on the technology solutions for everyday activities. But do all these solutions sound useful to the end end-user? Well, the answer is revealed only when the end end-user is asked for feedback. For many of the software products, user challenges could be seen in the form of user reviews provided, issues raised and the feedback reports. This has become a challenge for the solution providers as it has increased their service and maintenance costs for these products.

The real problem lies in the way the solution for a particular product was derived. Although these delivered solutions fulfil all the business requirements, but somehow, users find it difficult to interact with software design, and hence these design solutions turned out to be unsuccessful. Such situations became a learning for the IT projects, and they started exploring methods like Design Thinking for creating user-centric solutions.

Design Thinking is an innovative process which primarily focuses on the users. It encourages organizations to understand the people’s behavior for whom they are creating.?It is an organized process which helps in making logical decisions based on the facts identified during research to design better products and services in the real world. The process starts with identifying the users and gaining a deep understanding of their needs and problems and what they are expecting from the solution. ?

Design Thinking lets the Facilitator ask himself three main questions, as stated below. These questions help the designer to revolve around user needs while finding the right solution.

1. What does the user want??
2. Why does the user want it??
3. How does the user want it??

Design Thinking has its different stages and phases to be adhered to and followed sincerely to achieve a useful solution. But many product development teams, facing deadlines, resourcing and budget issues, fails to do that. These factors sometimes interfere in the entire solution process and corrupt the true nature of Design Thinking. They sometimes skip the stages or do not re-iterate on required features. Such teams do arrive at a deliverable solution but lacks effectiveness and usefulness.

In this article, I have explained Design Thinking in detail, along with some tools and techniques to boost the approach and how it could be aligned with agile sprints to maintain continuous delivery of modules and features to the customer.

Characteristics of Design Thinking:

The design thinking approach has many characteristics – it’s innovative, creative, user-centric, etc. But arriving onto a practical solution requires a few more characteristics to be added to it. These are desirability, feasibility and viability. It means that the solution should be desirable from the user's point of view, technologically feasible and economically viable.

These characteristics shapes your thinking process while searching for a solution. Let’s briefly understand the process of deriving solutions in high-level stages before diving into detail into Design Thinking.

• Identify user needs: Discover and focus on what people really need.
• Create problem statements: Convert the user needs into logical problem statements.
• Generate Ideas: Brainstorm to generate ideas as solutions for each problem statement.
• Prototype your ideas: Build rough prototypes to learn how to make ideas better.
• Test your ideas: Refine ideas by gathering feedback by testing it them with the real users.
• Create a Story: Craft a story about how your idea helped the user achieve their goal.

?The above phases can be followed iteratively during the process. For e.g. You may feel during the prototype phase that a few more questions need to be answered on the functionality aspect, which may take you back to the 'User Needs' phase. Moving through these phases will eventually evolve and refine your design solution.

Different Design Thinking models:

There are various design thinking models available across the industry. Each model has its own explanation of what happens at each stage and why in the design process. Over the years, many organizations have developed their own models. Each design may differ from one another, but the core of problem-solving is the same, and you will find the essence of the solution process briefed in the previous section in every model.

In a nutshell, all Design thinking models focus on a few common factors like

• Users
• Problem Identification
• Discovery of Solutions
• Validation of Solution

1. Stanford’s d.school model

Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford is the leading university when it comes to teaching Design Thinking. They have invented their own model known as Stanford’s d.school five five-phase design thinking model.

It is a non-linear and iterative model which consists of five stages practiced in a non-linear fashion.

2. IDEO’s Human Human-Centered Design Process

IDEO is an international design and consulting firm headquartered in the US. IDEO’s design approach mainly focuses on the Empathy that involves user interaction with the product and observing the user behaviour.

3. Google Design Sprint

Google’s Design Sprint is a five-day process which maps each phase with each day of the sprint. There is a Sprint Master who runs the entire sprint while focusing on the critical problems.

4. SAP model

Bill McDermott, SAP SE CEO, says, “We are using Design Thinking to gain empathy for our customers and help you realise your future through technology so we can help the world run better and improve people’s lives.”

SAP model basically runs on three concepts:

• People – View the problem through the eyes of the end end-user.
• Process – Discover end-to-end solutions by focusing on the root of the problem.
• Place – Create a place to gather and have open discussions

5. Double Diamond Approach

It was created by a British organization named Design Council in 2005. This model is based on two different types of thinking, i.e., Divergent and Convergent

• Divergent thinking — consider all the problematic aspects and all the solution aspects.
• Convergent thinking — focus on the critical problem areas and focus on the critical solution areas.

These are the few Design Thinking models that you may consider while proceeding with your product development. But always remember, Design Thinking phases should be carried out well before the start of the actual development of the product. The results or outcomes from these phases will be fed as input to the development phase providing the team with a clear picture of what is to be created.

How to do you practice Design Thinking phases?

Before starting to employ Design Thinking in any of your product development projects, it is very important to know about how to practice each of its phases and what are the tools and techniques that can help in the process. Many industries and organizations that has have started involving Design Thinking principles in their product development projects, sometimes, fails to invest the right amount of time and technique in each phase. They cut short the process due to time, budget and resource constraints and thereby producing less efficient solutions.

In this section, you will learn how one can practice each Design thinking phase in the right way, along with some techniques and tools for each phase.

1. Empathize: Empathy is all about having a deep understanding of the users and the process they follow. This helps us to know the pains that users are facing and what gains the users would like to achieve in the system (be it a product or a process).

There are many ways in which you can empathize with the users. It could be in the form of user interviews, or you can analyze the problem tickets raised by the users on usability or comments on any of the feedback platforms (if available).

User Interviews - It is one of the best ways to empathize as you get all the insights right from the users. But there are some etiquettes to follow to make the interviewee comfortable during the entire conversation.

• You should lead the conversation in a manner that get users into talking, and they open up to us and discuss their issues and concerns. Try not to ask too many direct questions. For e.g.: “Do you like the current process of maintaining resource records?” it’s a direct question; instead, you may ask, “What are your thoughts about the current process of maintaining resource records?”
• Be a good listener during the entire conversation and keep taking notes of what users are saying.
• Users might change expressions while switching from one topic to another; this is the place where we get insights from their emotional behavior if they are happy about a particular process or very dissatisfied with a process. Observe the change in user tones during the conversation.
• To confirm that you are understanding what the user is trying to convey, it is good to rephrase your understanding back to the user in the same language or words the user has used.
• Whatever insights you have gathered from the users; you can organize all of it in a more readable format like empathy maps.

2. Define: Now, when you have all the insights gathered from the Empathize phase, it is time to analyze and synthesize them to create problem statements.? In Analysis, you break down a problem into smaller constituents (For e.g.: Persona, empathy maps), and in synthesis, you organize the constituents together to form valid problem statements.

Empathy maps (Analysis) – Empathy maps allow you to arrange all your information collected during Empathize phase in a more structured format. It consists of four quadrants about what users – Say, Do, Feel and Think.

• SAYS – Write down specific user comments, and user mentions from user interviews.
• DOES - Describe what does the user does in from the perspective of the product or the process.
• THINK – Mention user thoughts about the current process and what are the expectations.
• FEEL – collect the user’s non-verbal cues like body language and their choice of words and tone of voice during the conversation.

Now let’s look at the below image to understand how we can arrange our insights gathered in Empathise phase in an Empathy map. In the below image, we are considering an example problem statement and a few sample statements in each quadrant for the explanation.

Problem statement – “To design a smart resourcing solution for project managers”.

POV statements (Synthesis) – POV statements comes under the synthesis section of the Define phase. Your analysis will now be synthesized to create clear problem statements. POV stands for Point-Of-View statements, these are more goal-oriented statements, as explained in the below image. A POV statement can be bifurcated into three parts – user, user needs and the insight.

3.Ideation: ?This is one of the most important phases of design thinking, which opens the door for all innovative and creative solutions. All you need to do is focus on the problem statements derived in the Define phase and brainstorm on all-possible solutions for them. It is good to practice ideation with your team members to generate more ideas.

Few best practices for the Ideation phase:

• Setup a time-boxed session – Organize a brainstorming session with your peers, stakeholders or team members and practice time-boxed ideation.
• Focus on the problem statement – Pick one problem statement generated from the Define phase and focus on brainstorming solutions for the same.
• Go for quantity of ideas – Ask your team members to look for all possible solutions that they think of during brainstorming. Storyboard all the ideas and start discussing each one by one.
• Defer Judgement – Avoid biasness biases while discussing the ideas with your team members. Look for the effectiveness of the solution that and how it is meeting the user goal.
• Write your ideas – Keep a board available for the participants to write down their ideas. It would be best if they can demonstrate their ideas by with a few sketches as well.
• Build on each other’s ideas – See if one or two ideas can be combined together to generate a better solution.

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4. Prototype: ?Prototyping helps in giving a shape to your selected idea as a solution. It produces an early scaled scaled-down version of the product. It helps to visualize how what the solution will look like and how it is going to address the user problems.

Prototyping is very simple, ; there are two ways you can produce prototypes:

Low Fidelity Prototyping – It involves building the skeletal structure of the design in black and white. These are simple drawings which are easy and cheap to build. You can create it just on a piece of paper, drawing lines and shapes.

High Fidelity Prototyping – These prototypes are visually appealing, interactive and functional. It gives a feel of the final product but takes a little more time and effort than low fidelity prototypes. There are tools available to create such prototypes, for e.g. Axure RP, Adobe XD, Figma, Sketch, etc.

5. Test: ?Testing will generate user feedback on the design solutions that you have created. It will help you to see how users interact with the solution provided and if they are satisfied with the result. Users’ feedback may take you back to any of the previous design thinking phases: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and you may have to re-iterate to address user feedback.

One thing you should always adhere to is, you always test your solutions with the right set of users. These are the intended users who are going to use the final product. Ask them the right questions and also let them contribute on to the design by allowing them to share their ideas too. This type of testing is generally referred to as Usability Testing. There are many ways in which you can perform usability testing.

In-person Usability Testing – In this type of testing session, the observer (facilitator) directly monitors the tester’s (user) actions by physically being present together. Observer The observer may sit aside the user and ask the user to perform some set of tasks in the system while monitoring the user’s actions and taking feedback on different aspects like accessibility, usability, aesthetics, and functionality of the system.

Monitored Remote Usability Testing – This type of testing session takes place via online meeting sessions when the user and observer are geographically separated. But the testing process remains the same. User The user is given a set of tasks to perform in the system and is observed remotely via screen sharing.

Unmonitored Remote Usability Testing – In this type of testing session, Observer provides the user with the task list and leaves the room to for the user. Users in solitude interact with the system, and the entire user-system interaction is recorded for later analysis by the observer. Also, the user may be provided with a sheet of questions where he may write down his thoughts while performing the tasks.

Usability testing is considered one of the best ways to record end-user feedback. But along with this, there are a few other methods also that you may add up to your testing process to know more about user satisfaction. One such method is the System-Usability-Scale (SUS) scores.

SUS consists of a very organized set of 10 questions which are to be rated by the users on a scale of 1-5 (1 being stating strongly disagree and 5 being stating strongly agree). There These scores are then applied to a mathematical formula to generate the user satisfaction score for the product.

You can read more about SUS here - Beyond the NPS: Measuring Perceived Usability with the SUS, NASA-TLX, and the Single Ease Question After Tasks and Usability Tests (nngroup.com)

Integrating Design Thinking with Agile framework

Agile is a way of working which that works on the principle of Continues Improvements (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) in software development. In an Agile framework, a software development plan is break broken down into sprints with some set of deliverables provided at the end of each sprint. These sprints help in gradual software development along with improvements. A sprint can be of 5-10 working days in which tasks or activities (user stories) are assigned to each team member to complete during the course of the sprint.

Let’s understand how Design Thinking and Agile can work together by taking an example of a project scenario.

Scenario: A mobile banking application has to be built to improve financial inclusion of users. Many people lack access to banking services due to their digital illiteracy, hindering their ability to save and manage finances. The desired solution is a mobile banking app that addresses the specific needs and challenges such users, making it easier for them to access banking services and manage their money effectively.

It is always best to include a designer during the discovery phase of the project along with business and technical team. If for some reason this was skipped, then it best to have one additional data gathering session a week later when the designer is on-boarded.

Now let us see how a designer can start gathering user requirements after discovery phase and converting them into a design solution aligning with Agile sprints.

Sprint 0: User Research (2 weeks)

• Empathize (1 week): During the first week, the Designer conducts interviews to understand the needs, challenges, and aspirations of the users. They gather data on their financial habits and any existing informal banking practices.
• Define (1 week): In the second week, the Designer synthesizes the research findings to create personas and problem statements to define the specific challenges and opportunities that the mobile banking app should address.

Sprint 1: Ideation and Prototyping (2 weeks)

• Ideate (1 week): The Designer conducts brainstorming sessions to generate creative solutions such as simple user interfaces, offline access, and financial education components. This phase encourages out-of-the-box thinking.
• Prototype (1 week): In the second week, the Designer creates prototype of the solution. The prototype will be tested by the users and modified based on user feedback.

Sprint 2: Testing and Feedback (2 weeks)

• Test (1 week): Users interact with the prototype. The Designer observes how users navigate through the application screens, identify pain points, and gather feedback on features they like and dislike.
• Refine (1 week): The user feedback is them implemented in the prototype to refine the design. After feedback implementation the Designer hands over the design for development. The Designer explains the flow and functionalities of the design to the developers and also provides them with UI Design instructions for color, typography, pixel sizes and other specifications to be followed during development.

Sprint 3 and Beyond: Agile Development phases starts:

• Once the Design sprints are over, Agile development phases starts followed by testing and deployment.

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By aligning Design Thinking phases with Agile sprints, you ensure that the development process remains user-centric and adaptive. The initial Design Thinking phases provide valuable insights and user empathy, which inform the Agile development process, leading to a mobile banking app that genuinely addresses the needs and challenges of users. The iterative nature of Agile allows for continuous improvement based on user feedback.

Things to remember:

• All the design thinking phases must be performed before the beginning of the development of the product. This will help in reducing the development cost for the changes that arise at the later stages because the development started only when the design was approved and tested by the stakeholders and end end-users.
• If the need for re-iteration is generated, you should always do that, as this will only refine and produce a better solution. And that is the whole point of employing design thinking methodology.
• Always check for the feasibility of the solutions provided. The solution should be technically feasible and achievable.
• Do not overshadow any of the phases or insights by any development activity or biasness biases of any individual in the team.
• Never skip the Empathize phase. Sometimes the users are not available for the interview sessions. In such cases, you should try to look into the requirements to understand the user vision, or you can also connect with the stakeholders to understand about the user needs to frame your POV statements but do not skip the phase.

Benefits of Design Thinking

Design Thinking has benefitted many organizations and companies in delivering useful products and raising the bars for their customers’ satisfaction. The design team also has experienced many benefits while undergoing the process. Let’s just take a look at a few.

• End-user engagement: Design Thinking allows you to view the problem from the user’s perspective. Design Thinking allows you to visualize the challenge through the users’ eyes which eventually helps you to gain the ability to uncover hidden insights and challenges users might be facing. Its gives importance to the users says during the process because it is them they who are finally going to use your product. And what is best than hearing right from the horse’s mouth about the product’s efficiency, reliability and usability.
• Identifies root cause of the problem: Design Thinking allows you to identify the root cause of the underlying problem. Rather than relying upon the assumptions put forward by any stakeholder during the initial phase, Design Thinking encourages you to organise a one-to-one session with the users. Even if the users are not available at the moment, you can roll out a few survey forms to get users’ feedback, or you can analyse any database with the users’ complaints/comments regarding the existing product or process. Every piece of information has to come out from the users.
• Refine the solutions: The iterative approach of Design Thinking brings you back to any of the previous stages to identify and fulfil the missed requirements or any other gaps. This, in turn, refines the overall solution while incorporating maximum identified needs in the design itself. A Designers designer does not always look straight at the challenge and create problem statements. When you create a problem statement, you may identify another challenge which is driven by your first problem statement, and it did not directly come out of the users' mouth, and for this, you have to create a new problem statement. This is where a hidden insight is revealed and taken into consideration which works as the refinement of the solution.
• Encourages Deep Thinking: A designer’s deep thinking is triggered when you are not designing for others, ; you perceive that you are designing for yourself. It's you who is facing the challenge, and you have to find a way to overcome that challenge. This is very much true, though, ; when you step into the users’ shoes, you feel the same way your users’ feel. Deep thinking allows you to connect with your users and how you can remedy their issues using your innovative and creative skills.
• Prototyping provides the feel of the real product: ‘A picture is worth more than a thousand words.’. And a prototype is more than just a picture. It gives you the feel of the actual working model along with the visual looks. This is one of the best ways to convey your ideas to the clients and the users. A prototype helps them to imagine real real-world scenarios and how it is going to help them meeting their goals.
• Validates the solution: Design Thinking allows you to validate your solutions with the end-users in the testing phase. Each and every problem statement identified in the define phase is validated by the users. Users tests the navigation, interaction, intuitiveness and accessibility of the overall design to mark it as tested. A design solution can only be termed as complete if it is fully validated by the users and the stakeholders.