Design

Managing UI work in Scrum

Two different approaching design work within your development flow.

A few days ago, a product manager asked me how I fit the design workflow within a sprint. Notably, how exactly I manage the sporadic outputs from the design team within the constraints of Scrum.

The Problem

Their problem, they said, was that design stories were unpredictable and could not be properly estimated. This was due to the design process involving multiple approvals and validations, despite having a component-driven design system. Additionally, a designer’s time would be spent in both creating, pitching, and, validating the story. Certain QA aspects of animation, pixel-perfect UI, etc. were paramount to the design team.

In the past, I’ve experimented with various approaches to make design as a part of the development team. I’ll talk about the two of my most successful versions, but know that this comes with a YMMV (your mileage may vary) caveat. Different orgs have different design team structures — some are more independent, while others depend on the hierarchy.

Why Scrum doesn’t work

Before we explore the approaches, I’ll specify why the ‘development team’ as one concept (which states that the…