Kostanija, for the last year or so I've operated in two roles for my employer. I work with a pair of agile/scrum teams.
In general I'm UX Lead for the company, but also the Product Owner. Product Owner in this case is pretty hands-on, taking care of some activities that a scrum master would, in addition to representing the customer. Here are some pros and cons from my own experience. Pros for UX person in PO role. * UX concerns/user advocacy get attention. * Because PO is part political, UX can be represented to execs. Cons for UX person in PO role. * If there aren't other UX people in company, real UX work barely gets done because being a PO takes a whole lot of time. Ok, what I'm trying to push for is to have someone else take over the Product Owner role (and angle for this person to be UX-inclined), so I can be freed up to cultivate a healthier UX presence in the company. In part, I'll be able to do the work, advise POs on UX concerns, and mentor UX practitioners and developers on integrating user experience into the iterations. My fear is that by relinquishing the PO role, the priority for UX work will slip. I don't think that will happen, though. To help keep UX thinking active, I've declared that every Wed morning will include a usability test. Informal and largely internal, but at least to get UX and developers into the habit of doing usability work. I think this will help shift thinking and awareness across the agile teams. I'd be curious about what other UX practitioners in agile teams have to say. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48601 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
