How I
Navigate cross
-functional teams
Working in cross-functional teams gives your team the best chance to be truly “agile.” Proving/disproving a hypothesis or policy direction means you can quickly iterate on a feature or area of your service.
I previously worked on a Scottish Government project, designing a new registration service to support the incoming Moveable Transactions Act.
Project Team Structure
Org chart showing the full project team
Benefits
🛜 Clear translation of legislation into service design and requirements
🛜 Enabled rapid and frequent user interviews and usability testing
🛜 Insights led to quicker iterations in the service UI
🛜 Example mapping sessions kept the development team engaged and streamlined the design-to-development process.
Challenges
🔶 Unclear roadmap due to delayed regulations, meant areas for research not fully scoped
🔶 Varied experience levels within the team, particularly among Product Owners and Business Analysts, led to a strong Tech Lead influence
🔶 Tech Lead’s dominant leadership style stifled input from quieter team members
🔶 High staff turnover (Product Owner, BA, and QA Tester) 6 months before delivery, impacted the project roadmap and user research plan
My approach
🧲 Created quarterly research plans that tied back to & shaped the evolving roadmap
🧲 Built a strong working relationship, after a difficult start, with the business analyst to clarify and refine feature requirements
🧲 Worked with Service Design to co-create Job Personas and User Journeys, aligning research and ensuring a coherent story for stakeholders.
🧲 Adapted approach with the Tech Lead, involving them early in the design process to balance their expertise while keeping user needs central.
Example user research plan
Research plan template
Outcomes
🎱 Improved collaboration & alignment between Business Analysis, Service Design,User Research & Tech Lead
🎱 Reduced siloed ways of working through strategic swarming around challenges
🎱 Quicker implementation of insights through rapid synthesis and sharing of research insights.
Lessons learned
☄️ Stronger collaboration with the Agile Coach to enhance team harmony and meeting structures.
☄️ Earlier involvement of the Policy Lead into research to clarify legislative concerns, potentially influencing policy before it became law.