Background story
After the debut of the first iPhone in 2007 and the success of Apple Inc. in the following years. Many business owners become Stev wannabe and place UIUX at the heart of their service and product.
Experience the UIUX hiring booming in Kuala Lumpur makes many graphic designers switch to UIUX because UIUX offers higher pay and better opportunities.
All these whiles, the business owner or management place UX as a part of their core, many neglects the Developer/Team experience? For this post, gonna talk more about the Developer/Team experience that I was doing to improve throughout recent years but never notice it until recent days when discussed with my co-workers.
Progress & Flow
Making progress towards the business goals is satisfying, but the flow is often overlooked in the early stage due to the stereotype of flow or process limits flexibility. So most of the small teams or SMEs skip it and when the team starts looking into it, many things are hard to pivot, since many things are already in place. Imagine this:
Changing the engine while the train is running is extremely hard to do so. Same apply to changing the flow/stack while the business is running & growing fast
IMO, the ability and flexibility to pivot is part of the flow too, it’s shouldn’t be the exclusion of the flow. To start with Team experience I start with the flow.
Flow
To start with the flow, I always start with asking why, it helps the process of defining the flow.
Worth reading: Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action
When we start to ask why. A lot of things start to unfold:
- Some decisions are made that for short-sighting strategy, don’t work well in the long run.
- Some decisions are made out of personal preference and without sufficient facts and data.
- Some decisions are made that fit, and we should keep them.
So after asking why, then we proceed to who, what, where, when and lastly how, basically it’s 5W1H. Throughout the stories unfolding, some people don’t feel comfortable, ’cause that might indicate the improper decision made in the past. The emotion is the hardest part of the process, to be honest. There’s no absolute appropriate decision, things may change from time to time due to different scenarios.
People and tools
After sorting out the big picture of flow and understanding 5W1H, then it's time to evaluate the people and tools required to make it happen. Again:
Prevent my teammate from hammering a nail with the screwdriver
In other words, getting the right talent with the right tools to complete the mission. A very long story for this, think better save it for another post.
Giving right direction & Info
After getting people and tools ready, the next thing to do is to give the right direction & info. Any misinformation will land the team in the wrong place, eventually wasting the time and effort.
Final words
Teamwork is like a game, anyone should enjoy solving it while making progress. Of course, some play it professionally and competitively to get awards, that’s doesn’t mean the rest cannot enjoy doing it.
Overall, the purpose of developer/team experience is to make everyone enjoy what he/she is doing while staying productive and creating a useful & aesthetic product at the same time.
