Iterative Reviews and Incremental Revisions in Agile Human Centered Design

I love the Agile development process. I love that there are short development cycles to pivot quickly in these ever-changing markets we are in; continuous reviews with stakeholder to ensure we are delivering the right business value or course correct if needed; and the use of stories to keep the focus on the people who are interacting with the solution. Love it!

Human-centered design (HCD) is similar. We gain understanding of the context of the solution by observing and talking to the people who interact with the it; we identify customer goals and business requirements to inform the solution design; and we develop and test our ideas all along the way – iteratively reviewing them with stakeholders and customers – making incremental changes to ensure it delights the target audience.

These two methodologies work so well together. HCD helps us to vet assumptions, validate design decisions and evaluate the solution while Agile helps us quickly adjust to changing market or business needs and deliver solutions more quickly with higher quality and more predictive schedules and cost.

Great organizations follow both these methodologies to ensure that they are delighting their customers and creating customer lifetime value for their brands.