Qconn

Building with Lean: A Cross-Functional Pairing Approach

Location: 
Grand Ballroom - Salon C
Track: 
Lean Startup applied
Abstract: 

Part of the inspiration for lean is to eliminate as much unnecessary work as possible to arrive at a valuable end-product. Methodologies such as Lean UX aim to design the best customer experience in the shortest cycle possible, but how do these approaches apply when it comes to executing and shipping a functional Minimum Viable Product? In this talk, designer Jono Mallanyk and software engineer Ben Burton delve into the hands-on approach they've taken to cross-functional pairing to design and build products quickly and effectively. In this talk, they'll detail how and when to involve execution in the lean process, tools and techniques they've found useful for developers and designers working together, and do some live cross-functional pairing to demonstrate their process. At Neo Innovation Labs, Jono and Ben have spent the past 6 months pairing as designer and developer, learning from each other, and honing their cross-functional process to arrive at a truly lean approach to software creation.

Jono Mallanyk
Jono Mallanyk's picture
Jono Mallanyk is a Senior Designer at Neo, a global product innovation agency helping to put lean concepts into practice for both entrepreneurs and the enterprise. Since 2001, he's worked in technology building products and teams with a focus on user experience and interaction design.
Ben Burton
Ben Burton's picture
Ben Burton is a software engineer at Neo. He has been professionally writing software since 2008, and has been involved in doing Lean software/product execution and ideation for the past 3 years at Neo and previously TheLadders. Ben has experience working with Ruby, Javascript, Java, Python and Scala. e is uncompromising in his devotion to quality and can often be seen working well past typical work hours and into many late nights and early mornings. Two years after arriving, his apartment in San Francisco contains only a bed, a desk, a few books, and the suitcase full of clothes he packed for his original flight.