Most of our enterprise projects are executed using some variation of Agile development. Agile is a methodology that releases software in increments of predetermined time in an effort to increase speed-to-market and allow flexibility in delivery. If there is one common thread when working in Agile as a Customer Experience team it has been the need to work ahead.
Working Ahead
As a customer experience team your job is to focus on the customer. You need to determine their needs, match the company product and service to the customer need, and deliver it in a way that is easy and intuitive for the customer to consume. So you’ve got to be asking your customers at least every quarter, “what do you need”, “how are we doing”, “what can we do to make your experience better”?
This quarterly surveying or one-on-one interviews will help you plan your upcoming quarters.
We like to work at least a quarter ahead.
In Agile terms, we are a Project Increment (PI) ahead of our development team. This allows us to still be strategic and tactical. We have time to service the sprint-by-sprint needs of the development cycle while focusing on the product vision and customer experience.
So be at least a quarter ahead.