Pilot - [Verify - CI]: Run a workshop to evaluate today's collaboration between UX and Engineering teams and identify improvements
As described in the Better UX/Eng/PM alignment and collaboration during Product Development epic there are some areas where we can improve in terms of UX and Engineering collaboration.
Challenges seen today
- Sometimes there is no UX involvement for MR reviews when changes are visual or are related to the user experience
- There is no difference today in how we review internal MRs and MRs for the community contributions. The main distinction here - is that internal changes are being ideated and designed within Gitlab processes that are not introducing any inconsistencies or UX debt. For the community contributions - it is likely that we need more time to investigate and enhance the incoming features to align with the existing guidelines.
- UX proposals are not always created thinking iteratively (what is the smallest thing we can do today)
- UX and Engineering should better involve each other into their work to practice
🤝 Collaboration,📈 Results ,⏱ ️ Efficiency, and👣 Iteration.
Proposal
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Run a brainstorming session (workshop) with Engineering Managers, Product Designer Managers, Product Designers and Engineers to identify today's challenges more clearly and discuss how we can aim to resolve them.
- Here is a proposed structure for the workshop:
- Mural board: https://app.mural.co/t/gitlab2474/m/gitlab2474/1594129976771/c5d15e542f33e4b4698a54274670ae1bde8c738a
- YouTube video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33hBnZzoFAg
- Main topics to be discussed:
- Iterative design and development
- UX involvement into MRs
- Help of UX in regards non-visual features like yaml, CLI, etc.
- Difference between internal and community contributions MRs and UX involvement into those
- Alignment on the definition of UX debt between UX and Engineering
- Closer collaboration and more often check-ins between UX and Eng. Building trust.
- Here is a proposed structure for the workshop:
-
Split up the sessions by the Verify and Release groups, as the two stages have slightly different concerns and smaller groups can be more effective.
Questions to answer
- Do we want to split the sessions even more granular? For instance by stage groups?
- Run a synchronous session (60 minutes) or try doing an a-sync exercise instead?
This issue is a pilot proposal. If this will go successfully - I would like to continue running similar exercise with the Release stage groups.
Edited by Nadia Udalova