The Secret Sauce: Bridging the Divide Between Development and Design

The divide between design and development can be vast. At worst, designers lob something over the wall for development without knowledge or perspective of technical limitations, and developers are left to sort out requirements and edge cases. When the developers run into complications, the design is thrown out. No one is satisfied when designers don't see their designs implemented the way they envisioned, and developers are expected to explain why it couldn't be built or why a deadline was extended. Does it really have to be this way?

Last year, the Encore Global Search team embodied Rackspace's core values and broke down silos with design and development collaborating more closely than ever. With a holistic approach and an understanding of the value of design, we built a tool for the Phone Team that saves 3,507 customer hours and $220k a year. So what's our secret? We'll share how we worked from the outside in, what processes we used, and how you can use the same approach on your team.

This version of the talk was presented at Rax.io, an Rackspace Conference, in San Antonio, February 2016.

Transcript

1. Bridging the Divide Between Development and Design The Secret Sauce
2. Glynnis Ritchie Software Developer Racker Tools WFH - New Orleans Eric Weidner Visual Designer REDD San Antonio
3. Bridging the Divide Between Development and Design The Secret Sauce
4. Encore Search PhoneUI
5. Zero to production in 4 months.
6. Our current implementation of the Avaya phone system needs to be significantly improved through integration with our multiple customer relationship management systems. We also need improved search capabilities so that Rackers answering the phones can more quickly assist customers.
7. Our current implementation of the Avaya phone system needs to be significantly improved through integration with our multiple customer relationship management systems. We also need improved search capabilities so that Rackers answering the phones can more quickly assist customers.
8. But what’s the secret? Yeah, yeah. That’s cool and all.
14. When designers don't see their designs implemented the way they envisioned and developers must explain why it can’t be built, no one is happy.
15. No one enjoys working this way.
16. Problems of Communication Absence of Future Vision
20. “Without requirements or design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.” –LOUIS SRYGLEY
21. Bridging the Divide
22. Look around the room.
26. Life outside the silo is scary.
27. “Yes, and…”
28. Establish a safe space.
29. Share meetings.
30. unicorn
31. unicorn
32. Interdisciplinarity: the combining of two or more disciplines into one activity; creating something new by crossing boundaries as new needs emerge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdisciplinarity
33. Interdisciplinary skills and team members are key.
34. Don’t be afraid to ask the obvious questions.
35. The 5 whys
36. Repeat things back to your team mates.
37. Work from the outside in.
38. Design starting
 from the outside
 benefits Dev
40. How we made it work.
41. Communication Cycle
42. Dedicated 
 Cross-Discipline Team
43. Competitive Analysis
44. Whiteboard Work Information that is needed by the user and what step is it visible
45. Whiteboard Work Questions for phone team to answer during their visits
46. Quick Individual Wireframes
47. Designing for ideal state
48. Ideal State as “North Star”
49. The benefits of a common visible goal
50. • Break down silos, share meetings • Embrace interdisciplinarity • Work from the outside in • Create a common visible destination
51. Video of PhoneUI interface?