5. Design

• Design deliverables are:

  • Iterative, not “all or nothing”

  • Delivered in “chunks” or sections, grouped by primary functionality depicted in the design specification.

  • Delivered when ready for review

  • Design time needed for each section can vary considerably, depending on size and complexity.

    • Don’t insist on “scrum-ifying” this process, forcing it into a standardized, uniform, time-boxed sprint duration. It just doesn’t work that way…

    • Instead, focus on the overall time allotted for design (as calculated in the CD Project Estimation Tool)

• The process must be taken in order:

  • Design a Complete Unit

    • Including API calls

    • Some areas may need to be “stubbed out” if they link to unfinished design sections

  • Design Review (see below)

  • Unit Testing

    • WOZ, Usability, A | B, Other as needed

    • Very small, simple units may not require testing

  • Signoff Approval for the unit

    • This is a gating factor, prior to development!

    • Stakeholder Signature Approval is required, and must be obtained from all stakeholders, before exiting this phase

  • Development of the unit

    • Stubbed-out links may need to be revisited, when the linked sections are developed

• Design Reviews are:

  • Done in 3 “flavors”:

    • Peer Reviews, conducted by and for internal teammates

      • Can include Designers, Developers, NLAs, QA

      • Signoff not required, but Internal Review must be conducted before a client-facing review

    • External review with the client

      • Design reviews are led by Design, never by Development, Project Management, Solution Management, Sales, or Business Analysts

      • Natural Language reviews are led by NLAs

      • PM, BA, and Dev are stakeholders but do not lead Design or NL review

    • (For Voicebot / IVR only) Internal Audio Review

      • Check TTS, audio quality, latency, equalizing, prosody

  • Conducted before moving to Unit Testing