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Customer-Centric Design

5 minutes 5 Questions

Customer-Centric Design is a strategy in agile development that places the customer at the center of design decisions. It requires an empathetic understanding of customer needs and involves the continuous evaluation of evolving user experiences. It also includes going beyond just asking what custom…

Guide: Understanding and Answering Questions on Customer-Centric Design

What is Customer-Centric Design?
Customer-Centric Design is a strategy in which the needs and desires of the customer are paramount in the design process. This design approach ensures that the products or services are suitably tailor-made to satisfy customer needs.

Why is it Important?
It is important because it enables businesses to produce goods and services that customers want, helping to build customer loyalty, competitive advantage, and ultimately improving company profits.

How it Works?
It works by conducting market research to understand customer needs and behaviors, then using that data to inform the design process. This could involve product design, service design, or even the design of business processes or strategy.

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Customer-Centric Design
When asked about Customer-Centric Design in the exam, remember to:
1. Explain what it is and why it's important in the Scrum context.
2. Describe how it works and give examples.
3. Bring in real-world scenarios or case studies to illustrate your points, if possible.
4. Be concise and to the point.
5. Use the appropriate jargon and terminology related to Customer-Centric Design.

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PSM I - Customer-Centric Design Example Questions

Test your knowledge of Customer-Centric Design

Question 1

You are the Scrum Master of an agency building a new mobile application for a client. The client is unsatisfied with the designs recently presented and finds them not user-friendly. As a Scrum Master, what is the best action to take?

Coordinate a Product Backlog refinement session without the client's presence to prioritize the redesign tasks based on the team's understanding. Request the Product Owner to issue a formal survey to the client to rate the design aspects, intending to quantify the dissatisfaction and prioritize accordingly. Convene a Sprint Review meeting to gather feedback directly from the client and reassess the product backlog items based on this feedback. Invoke an immediate team meeting to brainstorm innovative solutions for the application's design, independently compiling a list of enhancements before involving the client.

Correct Answer: Convene a Sprint Review meeting to gather feedback directly from the client and reassess the product backlog items based on this feedback.

The correct action involves direct client engagement to ensure that their concerns are understood and addressed, which is best achieved through a Sprint Review where feedback can be directly shared and acted upon. Refining the backlog without client input or relying solely on quantitative surveys might miss the nuances of client dissatisfaction. Brainstorming without direct client feedback might not align with client expectations and could waste effort on misaligned solutions.

Question 2

Your clients are constantly giving feedback that the product being delivered is highly functional but not intuitive. As a Scrum Master, what should you do?

Brush off the feedback as long as the product is working as intended. Teach the team how to design, ignoring the possible need for a designer. Ask the developers to code intuitively and leave out documentation. Facilitate a customer-centric mindset by encouraging the team to incorporate user feedback into the next backlog refinement session.

Correct Answer: Facilitate a customer-centric mindset by encouraging the team to incorporate user feedback into the next backlog refinement session.

As a Scrum Master, the key responsibility is to foster a customer-focused approach in the development process. The appropriate action in this situation would be to facilitate a customer-centric mindset by encouraging the team to incorporate user feedback into the next backlog refinement session. This would help the team understand the customer's perspective on usability and work towards improving the product's intuitiveness. Ignoring the feedback as long as the product is working does not conform to the agile principle of customer collaboration, hence is not a valid approach. Asking developers to code intuitively and ignore documentation is not a best practice because it could trigger confusion and enhance the risk of miscommunication. Lastly, while it is crucial for a Scrum Master to coach and assist the team, teaching them how to design by ignoring the possible need for a designer does not ensure an effective solution because it neglects the specialized skills that designers bring to a project.

Question 3

During a Sprint Review, the stakeholders are not happy with the design of the product as it doesn't align with their expectations. As a Scrum Master, how should you handle this?

Advocate for a complete redesign of the product without consulting the Product Owner or the development team based on the stakeholder feedback. Recommend that the stakeholders directly communicate their design expectations to the development team to bypass any miscommunication. Discuss the feedback with the Product Owner and encourage revision of the Product Backlog to better meet stakeholder expectations in future Sprints. Suggest implementing a buffer Sprint dedicated to revising all previously completed work to align with the stakeholder’s design expectations, even if it impacts the project timeline.

Correct Answer: Discuss the feedback with the Product Owner and encourage revision of the Product Backlog to better meet stakeholder expectations in future Sprints.

In Scrum, the Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product and managing the Product Backlog. When stakeholders are not happy with the product's design, the Scrum Master should facilitate a situation where the Product Owner and the development team can understand and incorporate this feedback in a controlled and planned manner. The wrong answers either sidestep the roles and responsibilities within the Scrum framework, suggest actions that could lead to scope creep, undermine the Product Owner’s role, or propose solutions that are not sustainable or aligned with Agile principles of incremental improvement.

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