UX And Agile Methodologies

Do you sometimes feel frustration, as you are building a product to get the management off your back, rather than address the users? Here are 6 ways to become user-centric again: 1) Prioritize in a transparent way This is a great place to start. If your backlog is prioritized based on data and potential opportunity, risk, and cost, it will be easier to put forth user-centric initiatives ahead of those that came from upstairs. At the very least, you will have a good basis for an educated discussion. 2) Utilize users' perspective using user stories and personas If your team understands the users and their problems, it will be easier to craft something great that will later appeal to the same users. Just keep up the empathy of creating something by people for other people, and not get some metric magically go up! 3) Understand user problems If everyone in the company can see the themes that come from user feedback, it will be way harder to ignore it in favor of some corporate nonsense. Let those voices be heard by everyone! What if there are 100,000s of voices? Here is where this post's partner comes in: Productboard , and their new release: Productboard Pulse. It's a powerful new tool you can use either as a standalone solution or to elevate your work within an existing Productboard product management suite. This new AI will help you make sense of all the feedback and comments, quickly transforming them into actionable, user-centric tasks. Check out the comments for more details :) Now, back to the post: 4) Have the NPS and user ratings at the forefront The same goes for a single metric representing the general product sentiment. If the number is low or, worse, is going down and everyone can see that, the responsible Product Manager has to react. 5) Focus on your product goals Now, upstairs mandates might not be the only distraction you face when trying to improve your product. To survive them all, focus on one thing: your product goals. This will allow you to demonstrate you are doing what you are asked for and you can use user feedback and points 1-4 to pursue those goals. Thus, it's like killing 2 birds with 1 stone. However, you can also simply: 6) Have the confidence to say "No" Not all company/legal/management requests can be ignored. Sometimes changing the law or a wider company initiative will require you to comply and that is OK! However, there will also be times when someone will try to force your compliance. This is where you need to be confident, and exercise your Product Manager's independence, especially when there is no data to support a specific request. There you go! My 6 ways you can become a user-centric Product Manager. Do you put your users first in your product? Sound off in the comments! #productmanagement #productmanager #usercentricity

Imagine thinking a story format is what makes you agile. Not long ago, I worked with an org that enforced the “As a user…” format in Jira like it was a legal requirement. Every ticket had to follow it or the story couldnt even be created. Meanwhile, they hadnt spoken to an actual customer in a year. Every planning session was just engineers and product managers guessing what “the user” might want, while the scrum masters debated commas in the story format. Why even call it a user story if you dont care about users? Here are 3 things more valuable than your story format: -> Real conversations with customers -> Prioritization that reflects actual user pain -> Cross-functional teams who ship instead of debate Agile was never about templates. The purpose is to close the gap between the customer’s problem and your team’s response. If the process gets in the way of that, you’re not doing agile. You’re just writing fiction.

7 out of 10 of my projects start with fixing what most people ignore. This includes: - making copy easier to read - making images informational - making product name impactful Simple, but yet forgotten. In this post, using URturms example, I'll be sharing 11 underestimated changes that can increase your website sales. 1. Adding breadcrumbs. Important if you drive ad traffic to the PDP directly. They take shopper to the parent category page. Reducing bounce rate. 2. Adding a badge. Like "Bestseller", "Most Loved", "Few Left". This reassures the shopper that they're making the right decision. 3. Making images easier to swipe. Add a sneak peek of the next image along with navigation dots that show the count. Cap them at 8. 4. Making the product name impactful. Add key USPs. Show your current product name to 10 people. Do they understand what it is? 5. Add a short description below product name. Keep it in 1 line. Highlight it's most important feature here. 6. Consider adding an offer close to price. This motivates the shopper as they see some potential savings or benefit. 7. Highlight key product strengths in bullets or with icons. Avoid sentences. Keep this before the add to cart CTA. 8. Keep your add to cart CTA full width. Don't combine it with quantity or another CTA next to it. Make sure it's readable and prominent. 9. Highlighting shipping time or return policy below the CTA. This solves for common questions - when will I get it? can I return it? 10. Cross-selling complementary products. Like bottoms with tops. Earrings with necklace. Do this close to the add to cart CTA. 11. Adding 'Benefits' to your accordion. This gets a higher click through rate, while helping shoppers understand why they should buy this. Other UX/UI changes I did: - Removed quantity button - Made the information bar non-moving - Removed log-in, moving search next to cart - Changed the font for product name and CTA - Increased font size in places for better readability Found this useful? Let me know in the comments! P.S. If you want to maximize your PDP’s potential, start by understanding your visitor's behavior and the gaps. Get heat maps for your site (Microsoft Clarity is free). Observe what they like to (and don't like to) interact with.

📌 How to do Prioritization as a Product Manager. Product Managers face a problem of plenty. You have so many things to do, many problems, many solutions, and many suggestions, but are always limited by time, bandwidth, and resources. Now you need to obsessively prioritize and filter ideas before you put them in the roadmap. But how do you prioritize? The simplest yet most powerful framework that most PMs rely on is the Impact v/s Effort Framework. The impact is determined by: - Potential revenue estimate, - Customer value, - Alignment with company goals, - Demand from the market, or - Any other relevant metrics that align with product goals. Impact estimation is mostly the responsibility of the product manager. The effort is determined by: - Development complexity, - Engineering efforts, - The time required & cost, - Operations complexity, etc. Effort estimation is mostly done by the delivery teams like engineers, design, ops, etc. This is a collaborative exercise. The next step is to visualize this through an impact v/s effort matrix. Provided that the estimations are done correctly, the low efforts & high impact items are picked at the earliest, & other things are prioritized in a logical order. 📌 3 Tips to take your prioritization game to the next level: 1. Consider tradeoffs at every step: Some high efforts ideas could be of high strategic importance, similarly some low-impact ideas could be critical for customer experience. Understand the situation from all angles. 2. Look out for red flags: All ideas look high impact, or the backlog is completely filled with low effort low impact ideas. This indicates either the PM is not competent at impact estimation or is not considering enough ideas during product discovery before deciding on the best one. 3. Validate high-effort ideas by first converting them into low efforts experiments. For example: Rather than converting your whole website into all Indian languages, try to convert the most popular pages into 3 popular languages, observe the results and then decide to roll back or go all in. 📌 Other frameworks for prioritization: There will be times when you'll need more detailed frameworks to prioritize, some of the other helpful frameworks are: 1. KANO: Puts customer satisfaction at the center and distinguishes between basic expectations, performance attributes, and delighters. 2. MOSCOW: categorizes requirements into four priority levels: Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have. 3. RICE: adds to more dimensions of Reach and Confidence to make Impact v/s Effort more reliable and exhaustive. ✨ Prioritization is a supercritical and useful skill for product managers, during their work, stakeholder management, and also during interviews. Do you think this would be helpful for you? I share helpful insights for product managers almost every day, consider connecting here 👉🏽 Ankit Shukla to not miss out. #productmanagement #prioritization

𝗛𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗵 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵: you don’t need 100s of hours for certifications to master 𝗔𝗴𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 Instead, you need to understand the essence of the methodology. And the essence is pretty straightforward, and can be easily applied in real life. So what does it 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 mean to be Agile? 1️⃣ 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲. Instead of following pointless frameworks or routines, Agile recommends you identify the right users and their biggest needs. Do this regularly to ensure you're always solving the most relevant user needs. 2️⃣ 𝗜𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Do NOT try to do everything (or too much) at once. Instead, break your tasks into manageable chunks (or "iterations" or "sprints.") In each iteration, deliver value. Use each iteration to build on the previous one, and deliver the overall value with the final iteration. 3️⃣ 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 You cannot create impactful products alone, you need the support from multiple other teams. Agile recommends teamwork and collaboration. Create systems to encourage collaboration. Help everyone understand their roles, so they can contribute to the team goals. 4️⃣ 𝗕𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 Agile teaches us that plans change (even when you plan well.) As an excellent PM, you should create systems that enable you to respond to change and allow you to minimize the negative impact of 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘴 on your larger goals. The trick is to learn to 𝘢𝘥𝘢𝘱𝘵 instead of denying change 5️⃣ 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 Irrespective of the methodology you use, sharing progress with stakeholders regularly is essential. This allows you to get feedback, iterate, and become better. While you're sharing progress, also share successes and failures. Winning and losing in public will amplify your learning. 6️⃣ 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 Being agile also means investing time in identifying opportunities to learn and improve. Every iteration you work on should be better, more efficient, high value, low cost, etc., than the last one. 7️⃣ 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 All of the above will only be possible if everyone in the team feels empowered to make decisions in the team's best interest. Encourage and enable everyone to contribute to and make decisions. Build trust and transparency to unlock the true potential of teamwork. Lastly, it is important to know that the processes and systems that the manifesto recommends should only be used as a starting point and not something that is set in stone. Focus on the above and then create processes that work for your team (or don't create them altogether) It is also important to know that Agile does NOT mean: 1. there is no documentation 2. you work in a chaotic environment 3. you do not plan well 4. that team does not focus on quality 5. team does not hold others accountable Let me know if you've practiced Agile, and if it is (or should be) different compared to the above. #technology #innovation

Stuck in a rut? Does coming up with a good idea feel like picking something to watch on Netflix? (every choice is mediocre, you end up arguing/scrolling for 2 hours) I have a few ‘good ideas’ to help. Here are 4 brainstorming techniques for UX problems. 💡 🧠 The HMW Reframing Method Start with a challenge—users aren't completing sign-up. Now, reframe it as a How Might We question—how might we make sign-up irresistibly easy? This simple switch kickstarts solution-oriented thinking.  Pro tip: Generate multiple HMWs for each problem to explore different angles. 🧠 The Intersection matrix Create a grid with user needs on one axis and random objects or concepts on the other. For example, "Quick checkout" meets "Rollercoaster." How could the thrill and speed of a rollercoaster inform your checkout process? It's weird, agreed. But you never know, you might end up with unexpected brilliance. 🧠 Reverse brainstorming Flip the script. Instead of asking "How do we improve user engagement?", ask "How could we completely destroy and annihilate user engagement?" List all the terrible ideas, then reverse them. It's a fun way to identify pain points and generate solutions you might have overlooked. 🧠 The 5 Whys You know this classic. Basically, become a toddler. Start with a problem statement and ask "Why?" five times. Each answer becomes the basis for the next "Why?" This helps you dig deeper and uncover root causes. For example: - Users aren't using the new feature. Why? - They don't know it exists. Why? - We haven't promoted it effectively. Why? - Our notification system is broken. Why? - It wasn't properly tested before launch. Why? - We rushed the development process. Boom. Now you know where to focus your problem-solving efforts. It also helps to begin ideation with the ‘hair on fire’ problem. Here’s how. https://bit.ly/4dHyjWl Let’s do opposites. What’s a brainstorming exercise you hate, and why do you think it doesn’t work? Looking to find some interesting answers in the comments! 🥸

How to fail in an interview Topic: User Research Role: Product Owner/ Product Management 👔 Interviewer: "As a Product Owner, how do you incorporate user research into your decision-making process?" 🧑 Candidate: "I look at feedback from surveys and reviews to decide what users want." 👔 Interviewer: "That’s a start, but let’s dive deeper. Imagine this: You’ve launched a new feature, and initial feedback seems positive. However, over time, churn increases, and users complain it’s too complex. What steps would you take to ensure such issues are avoided in the future?" 🧑 Candidate: "I’d send out another survey to figure out what went wrong and try to fix it in the next release."   🎯 What the Product Owner Should Have Answered: ✍️ Empathize with Users: "I’d ensure continuous engagement with users through interviews, usability testing, and field studies. Surveys alone often miss the 'why' behind user behavior." ✍️ Iterative Validation: "I’d validate ideas early through prototypes or beta testing with a small user group. This helps uncover usability issues before a full release." ✍️ Metrics + Insights: "I’d combine qualitative insights with behavioral data, such as feature usage, drop-off rates, or session duration, to create a complete picture of user needs." ✍️ Feedback Loop: "After launching, I’d establish an ongoing feedback loop with users and prioritize iterative improvements based on data and direct user input."   🔍 Impact of a User-Centric Approach: ✅ Reduced Risk: Catching usability issues early prevents costly rework post-launch. ✅ Increased Engagement: Features designed with real user input drive better adoption. ✅ Stakeholder Confidence: A strong feedback loop demonstrates ownership and proactive problem-solving. 💬 Key takeaway: A Product Owner’s compass is user empathy. Research isn’t a task; it’s a continuous dialogue to build what users truly need.   📌 Your thoughts? How do YOU keep user voices at the center of your product decisions? 👇 👉 Join "Agile Interview Hub" for deeper insights: Link below

It requires time and effort to stay consistent with Continuous Discovery. Your best accountability partner is your weekly user interview. This calendar invite will guilt you into staying consistent. Here's how you get there: 1. block time Set weekly blocker for interviews or Discovery work. If you happen to not have interviews, analyze the last ones or work on new experiments. 2. setup a scheduling link Give users a chance to reach you. A Calendly link will do. Now, let's give that link some eyeballs. - setup a scheduling link and give it to CS/Sales - add it to the bottom of your newsletter - have the scheduling link show up in your product - post it in your user-community if you have it 3. recruit actively Instead of just hoping people will find your link passively, let's actively reach out to your users. For that: - Setup a reminder in your calendar each Monday Every Monday - check if there are any interviews are coming up - if not, recruit a batch of 10 users How are you staying accountable? -------- I'm Niko 👨🏼🚀 I post 5x a week here in an attempt to get 1000 companies to do weekly Product Discovery. I'm at 21/1000. Which is more than four weeks ago. Follow along to see if I make it before turning 90. 👾 Want to have more interviews with your users? Juttu automates recruiting and scheduling. So you can focus on making product decisions. Like this post? Like 👍 | Comment ✍ | Repost ♻️

Brands used to broadcast. Now they respond. ✅ Think of a B2B SaaS platform where every interaction flexes to the person in front of it. A procurement officer logs in and the dashboard emphasizes compliance, audit trails, and control. A developer logs in and the experience surfaces APIs, sandbox access, and speed. A CFO sees ROI models, forecasts, and financial clarity. Same product. Same brand. Different resonance. This is the rise of responsive brand experience. Not a gimmick, but a strategy: making every layer of identity—UI, UX, content, and even tone of voice—adaptive, intelligent, contextual.❤️ The contrast is striking. Legacy enterprises still design for the average user. They ship one interface, one story, one pathway. Digital-first players design for each user, building systems that adjust like living organisms—changing not only logos, but dashboards, help content, and even microcopy to meet the user where they are. There’s philosophy behind it. Customers don’t just want “software that works.” They want “software that gets them.” Adaptive design—whether in visual identity, navigation, or communication—signals empathy. It says: we see you, we know what matters to you, and we’ll clear the clutter so you can move faster. But the danger is real. Adapt too much and you lose coherence. A CFO may welcome tailored insights but won’t trust a brand whose tone, design, or values feel inconsistent. Responsiveness must orbit around a strong, immutable core: trust, reliability, transparency. What shifts is the expression; what stays firm is the essence. So, the real question for technology brands is not can you adapt? It’s why and how much?💯 The opportunity is profound. Responsiveness is not decoration. Not novelty. It’s a signal of intelligence. The same principle behind great products—turning complexity into clarity—should govern the brand experience itself. When UI, UX, and content stop shouting and start listening, the brand doesn’t just “look” intelligent. It feels intelligent. That’s when technology stops being a tool and starts being a partner. #futureofmarketing #thoughtleadership #thethoughtleaderway

💡Combining Design Thinking, Lean UX, and Agile A combination of Design Thinking, Lean UX, and Agile methodologies offers a powerful approach to product development—it helps balance user-centered design with efficient concept validation and iterative product development. 1️⃣ User-centered foundation (Design Thinking): Begin by understanding the needs, emotions, and problems of the end-users. ✔ Start by conducting user research to identify and understand user needs. ✔ Gather insights through direct interaction with users (e.g., through interviews, surveys, etc.). Spend time understanding users' behavior, focusing on "why" rather than "what" they do. ✔ After gathering research, prioritize the most critical user insights to guide your design focus. Create a 2x2 matrix to prioritize insights based on impact (high vs low business impact) and feasibility (easy vs hard to implement) ✔ Begin brainstorming potential solutions based on these prioritized insights and formulate a hypothesis. Encourage cross-functional collaboration during brainstorming sessions to generate diverse ideas. 2️⃣ Hypothesis-driven testing (Lean UX): Lean UX helps quickly validate key assumptions. It fits perfectly between Design Thinking's ideation and Agile's development processes, ensuring that critical hypothesis are validated with users before actual development started. ✔ Formulate a testable hypothesis around a potential solution that addresses the user needs uncovered in the Design Thinking phase. ✔ Conduct experiment—develop a Minimum Viable Product (https://lnkd.in/dQg_siZG) to test the hypothesis. Build just enough functionality to test your hypothesis—focus on speed and simplicity. ✔ Based on the experiment's outcome, refine or revise the hypothesis and repeat the cycle. 3️⃣ Iterative product development (Agile): Once the Lean UX process produces validated concepts, Agile takes over for incremental development. Agile's iterative sprints will help you continuously build, test, and refine the concept. Agile complements Lean UX by providing the structure for frequent releases, allowing teams to adapt and deliver value consistently. ✔ Break down work into small, manageable chunks that can be delivered iteratively. ✔ Embrace iterative development—continue refining your product through iterative build-measure-learn sprints. Keep the user feedback loop tight by involving users in sprint reviews or testing sessions. ✔ Gather user feedback after each sprint and adapt the product according to the findings. Measure user satisfaction and track usability metrics to ensure improvements align with user needs. 🖼️ Design thinking, Lean UX and Agile better together by Dave Landis #UX #agile #designthinking #productdesign #leanux #lean