The Zombie Persona Apocalypse / Integrate UXD practitioners in your Agile team

Hi everyone,

We're going all User Experience in February!

Join us on the 10th Floor at 80 Strand, London - Michael Rawling (Senior UX Engineer at Unruly) and Sophie Freiermuth (Senior UX Designer at Pearson) are coming to speak to us on...

How to recognise the Zombie Persona Apocalypse

Are User Personas haunting you? Did your team create some personas at the start of your project but then never use them? Are they fading stuck up on a wall somewhere, technically now just dead weight...irrelevant, moaning...’braiinssssss’!!

User Personas can really help your team have productive conversations with stakeholders that shift away from debating personal opinions into decision-making based on empirical data. Mike will share his experience of how you can work with personas in a pragmatic way that fits into the world of Agile without compromising UX, XP/Agile or Lean principles.

Come to this session to find out how to blend personas into your Agile process so they continue to serve as a useful reference for your team and stakeholders throughout product development.

About Michael Rawling

Michael Rawling is the Senior UX Engineer at Unruly Media, a social media video start-up.

Mike’s experience in UX and UI development dates back to 1998 and since then has explored new ways of more effectively realising the massive potential that technology offers and that each product starts with. He has consulted on, designed, engineered and led such teams and initiatives for Tesco.com, Wiley, Camelot, Konami, LoveFilm and Granada TV

Integrate UX and Design practitioners smoothly in your Agile team, with Sophie Freiermuth

As the agile spirit is embraced by more and more diverse teams on a global scale, the need to integrate designers, including UX practitioners, opens the process for multiple avenues of exploration.

In this short talk, Sophie will discuss the different personality types that join the team when design comes onboard, whether a sprint zero is your solution, how to avoid skills segregation, and will end with suggested approaches to handle the delicate question of documentation. Through working with Agile teams on websites and desktop and mobile apps, Sophie's experienced many ways of integrating design with build, and will identify key factors in making this integration smooth.

This talk has been created specifically for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches and everybody involved in an Agile team who'd like to work better with designers, whether in Scrum, Lean or Kanban.

About Sophie Freiermuth

Sophie Freiermuth (Baguette UX) is a Senior User Experience Designer, now running her own consultancy, with over 8 years' experience gained in agencies and embedded in product teams client side for brands such as Nike, Fiat, Volkswagen, Orange, Nokia, Acer, American Express, Sainsbury's, etc. She takes a keen interest in creating beautiful, slick experiences for wide-reaching products, as well as in smooth collaborating practices that make working together a great way to spend the day. She combines her practice with sharing her knowledge and insights through coaching, mentoring and speaking at conferences worldwide. She is currently working on an app at Pearson with a UK/US distributed agile and lean team.

Twitter handle: @wickedgeekie