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Three's company: A proven model for good development (Uday Gajendar)

Three's company: A proven model for good development (Uday Gajendar)

This presentation highlights our beloved '3-in-a-box' model that we have introduced internally at Citrix, a 20+ year old enterprise software company, to foster cross-disciplinary partnership and thus, innovation. Our model of a 'box' represents a kind of pressure cooker, a forcing function that compels the core domains of Engineering, Product Management, and User Experience to bond closely from end-to-end on a project in a very tightly communicative and collaborative manner, to get positive results.

By way of an intense ten-month effort in Spring 2011, our team of Product Management (PM) and Product Design (PD) Directors, led by strong UX vision from our Principal Designer, achieved a breakthrough design for presenting Windows 7 on an iPad. The stakeholders rallied in a '3-in-a-box' fashion, where everyone participated and shared in the delivery of a compelling user experience. Together, the team shipped a product in about half of the time that the Engineering team spent struggling over the original code model.

Our presentation will hit the following points:
- The evolution of this project from initial clumsy sketches to iterative designs and shipped builds, with live demos (not just mockups) of real code on-stage. We will discuss the feature-by-feature breakdown and overall scenarios, as well as areas that didn’t quite make it in. Hey, it’s all iterative and imperfect!
- An insider-look at persuasive methods by Design and Product Management Directors for rallying support with key executives in terms of leadership and process planning: what to say and not to say with conviction (and patience) throughout the journey. Examples include: running a skeptical Engineering team through a week-long empathy study, giving pitches to execs at quarterly planning sessions to gather inputs and agreements, showcasing visionary concepts to the VP of Engineering and summoning his direct support to drive resourcing.
- A demonstration of '3-in-a-box' model with audience members. This exercise actively projects our attitudes and beliefs by re-living how it all played out in dramatic fashion. (Kleenex not provided)
- Advice on how to lead a '3-in-a-box' session back at your company, effective white-boarding techniques, and even photographing notes with an iPhone! Yes, there's a method to the madness that reveals how a few days of uninterrupted design time directly leads to much faster progress and better design quality.

In the end, our '3-in-a-box' approach inspired a small team used to waterfall methods to push the limits of technology and innovation in a collaborative, supportive manner, where everyone shared the victory of shipping a great UX. From nearly dashed hopes to tearful joy, experience this story first-hand, with perspectives from the PM and PD Directors themselves on what it takes to design exceptional multi-touch UX (released to the market December 2011 to positive feedback from industry reviewers and early customers). And now we have incorporated '3-in-a-box' as part of our planning process. It is included as part of our Design brief, project kickoff and progress tracking activities.

uxaustralia
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August 31, 2012
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  1. Three’s Company
    A proven model for good development
    UX Australia 2012
    Uday Gajendar, Principal Designer
    Citrix, Santa Clara CA

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  2. PRODUCT
    MANAGEMENT
    PRODUCT
    DESIGN
    ENGINEERING
    3-in-a-box

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  3. Yes, it really takes a village...
    PRODUCT
    MANAGEMENT
    PRODUCT
    DESIGN
    ENGINEERING
    Uday Jannie
    Robin
    Devs: Joe, Georgy, Dimitry

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  4. Problem – Windows 7 on iPad
    Work & Play from Anywhere

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  5. Problem – Windows 7 on iPad
    Work & Play from Anywhere

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  6. Problem – Schedules / Cycles

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  7. Problem – Team Collaboration

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  8. Our perceptions really matter!
    Developers Designers Product Managers
    As seen by
    Developers
    As seen by
    Designers
    As seen by
    Product
    Managers

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  9. Our perceptions really matter!
    Developers Designers Product Managers
    As seen by
    Developers
    As seen by
    Designers
    As seen by
    Product
    Managers

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  10. Teamwork/collaboration
    It  takes  mutual  respect  and  trust.  Value  each  other’s  
    expertise  and  professional  judgment.  Designers  are  fair  
    to  challenge  the  tech  constraints,  and  Devs  are  fair  to  
    challenge  the  design  rationale.
    Designers  aren’t  there  to  make  it  “pretty”.
    They  want  to  create  a  great  product.
    Ditto  for  Devs!

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  11. Project
    Chameleon

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  12. Initial engineering builds
    (pre 3-in-a-box)

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  13. Initial engineering builds
    (pre 3-in-a-box)

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  14. Personas!
    Umm, how about some

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  15. UI concept “kickstarters”
    (pre 3-in-a-box)

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  16. What’s going on
    here??!
    Enter the Product Manager!

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  17. •  Unproductive conference calls, “advisory role”
    •  PM & UX wrangling with Engineering
    •  Engineering do their own experiments and UI
    •  “Lipstick on a pig” level of discourse
    •  Trying to get empathy studies support from Engineering
    Summer of malaise…sigh.
    Yep, research was involved too!

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  19. Engineering progress…sorta!

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  20. Catalyst event: VP sees concepts!
    of Engineering

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  21. PRODUCT
    MANAGEMENT
    PRODUCT
    DESIGN
    ENGINEERING
    3-in-a-box

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  23. So, what really happened?

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  24. Sprint 1: Back to the basics
    Uday, Robin, and Jannie go to Florida
    Oct 13-15 2011

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  26. Sketch to Code FAST!

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  27. Uday & Robin go to Florida
    Nov 15-16 2011
    •  Finalized and polished the design
    •  Fine-tuned the workflow and user interaction
    •  Micro-tweaked the visual design
    Sprint 2: Refining the details

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  28. Details make the design!

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  31. The Citrix XenApp 6.5
    Mobility Pack looks
    bad-ass. Put a touch
    friendly skin on
    Windows apps.
    @BrianMadden

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  33. Final Lessons & What’s Next
    •  Brought together expertise from three distinct specialties
    •  Ease of communication and free flow of ideas
    •  Quick path from design to implementation
    •  Increased emphasis on design, both within Citrix
    and the industry in general
    •  Professional design is essential to a product’s
    success
    •  Traditional development process takes too long
    •  Now part of our design brief, etc.

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  34. Design Leadership
    How to influence the Executive team
    Worked with each group (Design, PM & Dev) to derive their needs and
    come up with a plan
    Share what’s broken and how 3-in-a-box can address the issues
    Define the process: steps and recommended moments for 3-in-a-box
    Build a case: We had 3-in-a-box moments for quick-fix project which
    led to create success. Use that as my cost-impact analysis
    Presented to the exec panel and establish a rollout plan
    Beta test it: One “beta” team, tweak then full deployment
    Celebrate success and rollout before beta team project is done

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  35. So, what is “3-in-a-box”?
    PRODUCT
    MANAGEMENT
    PRODUCT
    DESIGN
    ENGINEERING
    Partnership
    Collaboration
    Cooperation
    Teamwork
    Empathy

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  36. Questions?!

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