What can BAs and Agile Product Owners learn from Design Thinking and User Centered Design?
It’s not all about UX and UI! It’s about the customer journey and the end-to-end customer experience with the organization or process. It’s about seeing the product and process with the customer lens. You need to identify ALL of your customers and use their perspective to design, analyze and decide.
For example, let’s say your organization plans to implement a new application to order product parts. Who are the customers?
A: The internal employees who submit the part orders
B: The people who receive and fill the orders
C: The people who use the parts when they arrive
D: The people who purchase the product made with the parts
All of the above! The system supports data and processes that impact the end-customer in many ways. Design thinking helps BAs and Product Owners find and focus their customer lens, even when the customer is not a direct user of the system.
There are so many times when, as customers, we experience a negative touch point with a company because their systems and processes are poorly thought out. Companies can’t serve customers well when systems and processes are not designed to support customer interactions.
Here’s another example: If your organization is implementing a new call center application to manage questions about customer accounts, who are the customers?
A: The call center employees
B: The customers who interact with the call center employees
Both! The employees need a good user experience to provide the customers with a good user experience. If the system does not allow quick access to data needed to answer customer questions, the customer experience will not be good. If the call center employee asks the customer to repeat information already entered during the call routing process, the customer experience is not good.
Who is REALLY your customer? Are your requirements focused on the system features or focused on the customer experience as a whole?
We teach many design thinking and user centered design techniques in our BA and product owner classes. Innovative products and services require a focused customer lens. Inspire your team by initiating dialog about customers in all discussions about products, processes, and systems!