Scrum Ceremonies & UX Responsibilities

Stand up / Daily Scrum

Time: 15-30 minutes daily

Daily Scrum is a process the product team goes through daily to share with each other what each of us is doing to keep us updated.
UX Responsibilities: At this stage, my responsibility is to keep the team aware of what I am doing. I would share research findings from user research or usability testing. If I have any design sprint done prior to the meeting, I would use this opportunity to propose showcasing design concepts right after the daily scrum or schedule a time slot in the day if everyone is busy. This helps if I have a design spike where I made wireframe or prototype to solve for business problems with requirements and a goal in mind.

Backlog Refinement

10% of design sprint

Backlog refinement keeps the discovery backlog clean and organized. This step is led by the product owner.
UX Responsibilities: At this stage, my main function is to facilitate design workshops and lead the ideation process. I am in charge of design spikes and design sprints to push the project forward. I also refine and articulate specific UX-specific acceptance criteria for the user stories within the sprint at this stage of the process.

Sprint planning

2-4 hours per sprint

The entire team reviews the sprint cycle and estimates the effort needed to meet the sprint goal. This step helps everyone to gain a clearer perspective on what they need to do to achieve the sprint goal.
UX Responsibilities: My job at this stage is to make sure the end-to-end experience is included in the sprint. That’s when the customer journey map or story map comes in handy. I help define the main sprint goal in user-centered terms at this stage.

Sprint Review / Demo

1-2 hours per sprint, but it could be longer for a data-heavy project

The product team meets with the dev team, business team, and senior management for stakeholders for feedback at this stage of the sprint. UX Responsibilities: I would present and talk through the features from the user’s perspective. I would talk about the sprint goal and what is achieved in the updated design.

Retrospective

1-2 hours per sprint

This step is a chance for the team to learn from past sprints/projects so we can do things better in the future! We would talk about what worked for us and what could be improved in the future. This step is essential to help us to be more efficient and refine our workflow for future projects.