The Step-by-Step Process for an Effective Product Team

Developers often get annoyed when they have to start a sprint without the HTML/design ready for integration.

As designers dash against the clock, their output seems rushed & the engineers end up spending far more effort fixing design integration bugs than working on the functional aspects.

Eventually, the sprint goes into jeopardy. People finger-point. They hug it out in the retros, only to relive the cycle in the next sprint.

A better model, although difficult to sustain on a long-term basis, is the staggered approach (much like how contestants in a 100m race line up on a track).

First, gather designers & engineers to sign off on some SOPs like conventions, formatting, edge cases etc. Some teams like to do this during a "Sprint Zero".

Then, designers get a head start at the project initiation & in essence, the team ensures they are always an entire sprint ahead of the engineers.

This way they get sufficient time to comply with the agreed protocol & reduce bug counts owing to design that might pull them away from their existing sprint.

Similarly, the Product Manager needs to be a sprint ahead of designers. This is to ensure they have a ready pipeline to move designers to.

Difficult to pull off consistently but super effective.