This document aims at providing guidance to collaborate effectively and efficiently between product squads and designers.

<aside> 🗣️ Highlights

• Project Stage & Process
  • Eienshower Decision Matrix to categorise tasks by risk and clarity levels.
  • Determine project into Discovery, Ideation, or Design stages.
• Sprint Management:
  • Design tasks aligned with 2-week sprints ahead of development.
  • Sprint Planning to define sprint goals and deliverables.
  • JIRA used for collaboration and tracking.
• Template Stories:
  • Automated subtask population based on labels.
  • Please find templates below ↓↓. </aside>

Project Stage & Process

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix, or Urgent-Important Matrix, was created by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower who was known for his effective time-management strategies. Researcher Jeanette Fuccella modified this matrix to answer the question about when to prioritize research over speed.

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix (Design Edition) is divided into four quadrants according to risk and clarity levels. Designer and product manager agree on which of the 3 stages the said story will fall into: Note: 🟣 Designers’ tasks; 🔵 Product manager’s input

• Discovery
• Ideation
• Design

Sprint Management

Aligning design tasks into 2-week sprints ahead of development improves planning, reduces bottlenecks, identifies issues early, fosters iterative improvement, enhances collaboration, increases agility, ensures predictability, and speeds up time to market.

Sprint Planning (ahead of the next 2-week sprint)

• Prior to sprint planning,

  • Tickets are created in the respective backlog of JIRA project / squad, according to its project phase and nature (also refer to ‣).

    Tip: add labels Research Ideation Design to populate subtasks automatically.

  • PMs will prepare a list of candidates from backlog for sprint planning.

  • Candidates should have adequate context.

• During sprint planning,
  • Pillar Designers and PMs will plan backlog items to put into upcoming sprint.
  • Pillar Designers and PMs refine the ticket.
  • Designers will estimate the effort required for each design task.
  • Designers and PMs will agree on the sprint's goals and deliverables in the upcoming 2 weeks.
• After sprint planning,
  • Design team has visibility on design initiatives across all squads using Product Design JIRA board.
  • PM can monitor progress of stories and subtasks on JIRA.