How Allstate is adopting a lean startup culture

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Pradeep Nayar

User Experience Director, Allstate

UserTesting’s on demand customer insights platform enables companies to create powerful products and exceptional customer experiences.

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Pradeep Nayar User Experience Director, Allstate

Pradeep Nayar leads human-centered initiatives to drive engagement, innovation and adoption as the User Experience Director at Allstate Insurance Company. Prior to joining Allstate, he has worked several UX leadership roles in the B2B e-commerce and media industry. His current passion for teaching (and learning) has him working as an adjunct professor at DePaul University teaching the fundamentals of user centered design to graduate students.

@designonmymind

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HOW ALLSTATE IS ADOPTING A LEAN STARTUP CULTURE

Pradeep Nayar @designonmymind

@designonmymind

WHO AM I?

Interaction DesignerDesign TinkererExperience Strategist Technology Enthusiast

16+ years working in the media, B2B e-commerce and insurance industry

Passionate about how design and technology make peoples lives better!

@designonmymind

ABOUT ALLSTATE

Founded in 1931

70,000 employees including exclusive agencies

#81 Fortune 500

$35.7 Billion Revenue in 2015

#13 Elite 100 Innovators 2016 InformationWeek

THE WORLD WAS CHANGINGBusiness Models. Design. Technology. Human Expectations.

Average Life Expectancy of a Fortune 500 company50 YEARS AGO = around 75 years

TODAY = less than 15 years

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/19/peggy-noonan-on-steve-jobs-and-why-big-companies-die/#733704e93e57

Waterfall

SCRUM

+

XP

WE NEED TO INNOVATE FASTER

“I’m sick and tired of design thinking. It’s time we started doing design doing.”

- Don Norman

http://uxpodcast.com/125-don-norman-part-1/\

WHAT ARE WE DOING DIFFERENTLY?

@designonmymind

PAIRED PROGRAMMING

Two pair of eyes are better than one!

Code refactoring

Test Driven Development

Continuous Deployment

Continuous Integration

Cloud Goodness!

SMALL CO-LOCATED CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMSA pizza box sized team is empowered to make decisions and move quickly

@designonmymind

MINIMIZE MEETINGS

Meetings take people away from doing real work in a day

It’s a productivity killer!

Only have meetings to move teams forward

EMAIL IS DISCOURAGEDIf we can’t talk in person, the next best thing is #Slack!

Dedicated focus on solving just one engagement at a time

ONE ENGAGEMENT AT A TIME

BUILDING AN MVP

Focus on customer needs

Question assumptions

Create hypotheses

Build prototypes

Test & measure results

Pivot, Persevere or IterateMEASURE

LEARN

BUILD

TEAM STRUCTUREA Balanced Team

@designonmymind How Allstate is adopting a lean startup culture

BALANCED TEAM VALUES

18

Business

User Technology

http://www.balancedteam.org/

Create Trust

Share Experiences

Celebrate Failures

Welcome Diverse Teams

@designonmymind How Allstate is adopting a lean startup culture

BALANCED TEAM

19

Business

User Technology

+

Product Owner

Makes business decisions related to the product

Writes & maintains backlog

Removes barriers to work completion

Resolves issues & risks

Product Designer

Makes iterative design decisions based on a user-centered methods

Empathizer-in-Chief

Full-stack designer who does lean research, interaction & visual design

Helps in prioritizing feature/functionality

Product Developer

Makes technical decisions that influence & enable the solution

Test Driven Development (TDD)

Full-stack development support based on the product need

Continuous development & deployment

Anchor

Product Designer

WE ARE NOT MYTHICAL

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WE’RE NARWHALS!

“Unicorns of the sea”

@designonmymind How Allstate is adopting a lean startup culture

UX COMPETENCY DEBATE

23

VsSPECIALIST

“Expert craftsman”GENERALIST

“Jack of all trades”

Pair designers with complementary skills!

HOW WE SOLVE FOR IT?

@designonmymind

DESIGN CRITIQUE

When: Once a week

Peer review of designs by location

No judgement zone

Silent feedback

Valuable with people of diverse skills & backgrounds

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DESIGN STUDIO

When: Anytime

Everyone sketches to share different ideas

Goal-driven critique of ideas

Many ideas generated in a short period of time

Valuable with people of diverse skills & backgrounds

Focus on decisions instead of documentation

LEAN DOCUMENTATION

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CROSS FUNCTIONAL PAIRING

Build shared understanding

Incorporate diverse perspectives in the product

Grow empathy for each other

+

+

Product as designed

Feature prioritization & UAT

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PAIR ROTATION

Happens often within a project team

Helps to bring a fresh pair of eyes

Pairing reduces impact to the project

Individuals grow experience over time

About every 6 months we rotate individuals to different projects

Within a team

Because we all have days we need to be at home

REMOTE PAIRING

A TYPICAL WEEKDuring Execution

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ITERATION PLANNING

When: Monday

Prioritize work for the week

Clarify user stories

Get everyone on the same page

Work in pairs and clarify questions from each other as needed

PAIR UP ALL WEEK

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LEAN RESEARCH

When: Tuesday or Thursday

Lean validation of hypothesis with end-users

Everyone is involved in research including product managers and developers

Designers typically facilitate discussions

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STAKEHOLDER DEMO

When: Friday

Progress for the week is showcased to stakeholders outside the team

Everyone gets to see weekly progress

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TEAM RETROSPECTIVE

When: Friday

Everyone contributes & takes turn facilitating

Collective awareness of issues

Action items identified and assigned

Team health check

MAINTAIN WORK-LIFE BALANCE

8:45 AM

12 Noon

Team Standup Share status and plan for the day

8:30 AMLab StandupAfter grabbing breakfast

5:30 PM

LunchEveryone is required to stop work

3:52 PM

Wrap Up!Time to go home

Ping Pong break!Time to clear the mind

PRODUCT LIFECYCLE

@designonmymind How Allstate is adopting a lean startup culture

OVERALL PROCESS

39

SCOPING DISCOVER INCEPTION EXECUTION EVALUATION

Define and gain consensus on the business & user problem

Identify Goals Risks Assumptions

Actors High-Level Epics

Understand the problem

Understand Users

User Interviews

Contextual Inquiry

Generative Interviews

Understand Business

Stakeholder Interviews

Competitive Analysis

Business Model Canvas

Understand Tech Stack

Integrations Research

FRAMING

Conceptually solve the problem

Understand Users

User Personas

Design Insights

Scenarios

Concept Wireframes

Concept Usability Testing

Understand Business

Define & prioritize features

Understand Tech Stack

Basic App Creation

Come together as a project team

Clarify team roles & responsibilities

Identify goals, risks and anti-goals

Create persona driven user stories that map to epics Prioritize the backlog

Once the initial product is released, it should be continually monitored and evaluated

Desired changes can then be prioritized within the backlog

Allows the team to manage velocity and execute upon the project iteratively

Product designers should always be ahead of development

Usability testing should be repeated on a regular cadence throughout the iteration

THE JOURNEY HAS JUST BEGUN

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CONTINUOUS LEARNING

Bootcamps

Lunch & Learns

Learn Day!

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LAB LOCATIONS

Chicago Northbrook Tempe Belfast (N. Ireland) Derry (N. Ireland)

Beflast (Northern Ireland) Northbrook

TempeChicago

“The two things people hate most is change and the way things are.”

- Anonymous

Special Thanks to Erik Pedersen

Laura McGarrity Steph Ryter

Amazing Illustrations by Christopher Holm-Hansen

Aditya Dipankar Artem Kovyazin Tom Dell’Aringa

Oliviu Stoian Dan Boysen Scott Lewis

Lil Squid SBet

THANK YOU.Questions, comments & feedback Please contact @designonmymind