Article — — 2,559 words

Business — User experience — User research

A basic diagram of a desert, with multiple sand dunes visible in the distance. The furthest-away sand dune has a blue flag on top

I have long been an advocate of agile ways of working. One of the things that originally drew me to user experience was the opportunity to have evidence-based ways of understanding the changes you need to make. So I was surprised whenever I encountered people who believed that user experience methods ran counter to the principles of agile.

Linknote — — 75 words

Business — Technology

Agile is not a solved problem — Sam Hogarth — Scott Logic

A reflection on the Agile Manifesto, 18 years on, “making it old enough to drink in pubs”.

The point about the “subtle use of language” in the original Agile Manifesto particularly resonated with me.

When you read it, its simplicity is striking, and it’s actually difficult to disagree with any of it.

The problem is, simple doesn’t sell textbooks, training or consultancy. So over time, agile has been bastardised to become this monstrosity (courtesy of Deloitte).

Deloitte's Agile Landscape v3 - an impenetrable mapping of agile methods depicted as a subway map

Linknote — — 175 words

Business — Personal — User experience

UX your life: Applying the user-centered process to your life (and stuff) — JD Jordan, Smashing Magazine

I’m always in two minds about whether people should use work-based techniques on personal problems. I have heard of people using Trello boards at home to organise tasks, which sounds as nightmarish as it sounds sensible. I’ve even heard of people running scrum-style weekly planning meetings with their family, which definitely sounds overboard to me.

But I do like the look of some of the ideas here. For instance, I’m keen to map out out my life in weeks.

And I already know that affinity mapping can work great at home and for other stuff.

[When we did the MoRun in November](https://duncanstephen.net/this-time-last-week-i-ran-the-edinburgh-morun-5k/), Lauren and I made an affinity map to decide which of two runs to enter. My gut feeling told me another run would be better. But writing down all the pros and cons of each race, and grouping them, made it clear that my gut feeling was actually wide of the mark.