One of the important concept around Agile and Scrum is that it is more important to build the right product than to build the product right. Impact Management is a framework that helps managers to focus on impact of an idea and a product. In her article “Impact-Driven Scrum Delivery”, Ingrid Domingues explains how to brings together Scrum and Impact Management in software development projects where design is important.
Impact Management is based on Impact Mapping that provides the ability to define expected impact for business and users in a model, in such a way that it can be evaluated and measured at any specified time. This approach takes care of the business side of a project. Scrum provides a perfect communication platform where the business perspectives can meet the software development aspect that needs to deliver. Thus Impact-Driven Scrum Delivery marries the two, and helps both perspectives perform better with autonomy and purpose.
Impact-Driven Scrum helps also to solve the problem of the Product Owner who lack the skills to manage the design aspects of a product. This is achieved with the support of a a User Experience (UX) Lead that work as a proxy of the Product Owner in the design area. The article describes what are the responsibilities and the tasks of this UX Lead during the “minus 1” and “zero” sprints.
The conclusion of Ingrid Domingues is that “Our experience of this way of working is extremely promising. It gives the team the potential to deliver at its best. The team knows that its priorities are clear. They are given full support in any design issue and they know that shippable increments have undergone user testing. This results in high-quality solutions, it resolves the Product Owner’s dilemma and it delivers in software that provides expected impact for business and users. ”
Read the complete article on http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/impactdrivenscrum.php