BOOKING PLATFORM
Agile UX and Design Thinking at John Deere
From Winter 2019 to Summer 2020, John Deere underwent a significant transformation, adopting Agile methodologies and SCRUM within its IT organization. As a newly hired IT User Experience Designer, I played a key role in aligning UX with Agile practices, introducing research-driven design, and fostering scalable workflows.
My contributions included embedding UX into Agile processes, introducing Lean UX practices, and facilitating a cultural shift toward proactive, user-centered design. Through these efforts, I helped streamline workflows, increase delivery speed, and improve user satisfaction across critical application modules.
During the Agile Operating model rework, the org embraced SCRUM and a much more streamlined way of working
This is a mind map that I facilitated when the team was trying to determine how to use the Fullstory analytics tool.
Challenges
Adapting UX to Agile: Transitioning from a waterfall model to Agile required breaking down UX work into smaller, iterative deliverables without sacrificing quality or user focus.
Scaling Research and Design: The loss of a dedicated UX Researcher meant research responsibilities needed to be scaled across the team, ensuring that user insights remained central to all decisions.
Legacy Workflows: Stakeholders often requested direct translations of outdated processes instead of addressing underlying user pain points.
Collaboration Gaps: Limited communication between UX, Product Managers, and engineers led to siloed workflows and inefficiencies.
Resistance to Change: Teams were hesitant to adopt methodologies like Design Thinking and Lean UX, particularly in a traditionally engineering-driven culture.
One of the datapoints we'd use for finding UX opportunities was our monthly User Satisfaction Surveys. Results from that can be seen below:
The UX team chose to deploy Fullstory as our user analytics tool. In a world where Product Managers were very busy, we wanted something easy for them to use.
Once engaging a product team for a large project, we'd suggest the following cadence of UX activities:
Integrating UX into Agile Practices
Work Intake Process: Developed a structured intake process to vet incoming requests, reducing redundant efforts and ensuring high-priority tasks were tackled first.
Sprint Alignment: Broke UX tasks into smaller, sprint-aligned deliverables to keep pace with Agile timelines, enabling faster iteration cycles.
2. Scaling Research and Insights
Stakeholder and User Interviews: Conducted over 20 stakeholder and user interviews to understand pain points in low-performing areas like Invoices and Accounts.
Actionable Personas: Introduced personas focused on goals, pain points, and opportunities, providing clear, research-backed direction for design decisions.
FullStory Analytics: Led the adoption of FullStory to analyze user behavior and prioritize usability fixes, using session replays to expedite issue resolution.
Remote Usability Testing:
3. Facilitating Collaboration Through Design Thinking
Workshops: Organized John Deere’s first cross-functional Design Thinking Workshop, exposing seven product teams to tools like empathy mapping, journey mapping, and ideation.
Prioritization Exercises: Facilitated exercises that helped teams identify low-effort, high-impact opportunities, aligning UX efforts with business goals.
4. Standardizing UX Workflows
Reusable Components: Created reusable design patterns in Figma, ensuring consistency across designs and reducing redundancy.
Regular Touchbases: Established bi-weekly UX touchbases with Product Managers to anticipate work, share progress, and align on priorities.
Education Sessions: Conducted “Responsive 101” workshops for engineers, promoting consistent application of responsive principles across the organization.
Faster Delivery Cycles: Design timelines were halved, with fewer throwaway efforts thanks to the structured intake process and reusable components.
Improved User Satisfaction: Research-led improvements in the Invoices and Accounts modules resulted in significantly higher user satisfaction scores.
Scalable Research: Empowered team members to independently conduct research, enabling UX insights to drive decisions across multiple projects.
Cross-Functional Alignment: Regular touchbases and workshops strengthened collaboration between UX, Product Managers, and engineers.
Cultural Shift: Encouraged the adoption of Design Thinking and Lean UX, fostering a culture of proactive problem-solving and user-centered design.
The below is a piece of what I had presented in a Design Thinking Workshop that I had led.
Enhanced Efficiency: Streamlined processes and reusable design components reduced design time by 50% while improving consistency.
Higher Satisfaction Scores: Key areas of the application, like Invoices and Accounts, showed measurable improvements in user satisfaction, supported by targeted research and design efforts.
Scalable Frameworks: The reusable component library and structured workflows became foundational for future UX work, ensuring long-term scalability.
Proactive UX Team: The UX team transitioned from reactive design requests to proactively identifying and addressing user pain points, improving delivery alignment.
This case study demonstrates my ability to lead UX initiatives in a fast-paced Agile environment while balancing research, design, and collaboration. By embedding user-centered practices into Agile workflows, fostering proactive design thinking, and scaling research across the team, I helped John Deere deliver consistent, impactful solutions that aligned with user and business goals.