In today’s fast-paced digital world, Agile development has emerged as the go-to methodology for rapid software delivery. However, the relentless pursuit of faster Time-to-Market often compromises product quality. At the recent Agile+DevOps Techwell Event in Orlando, Florida, the founding team of Muffins  emphasized the need to bring back Design Thinking into Agile and Scrum development. By combining the iterative nature of Agile with the human-centric approach of Design Thinking, organizations can achieve both speed and quality & outperform their competitors, in the process.

In this blog post, we will cover the key insights shared by Ravi Krishna & Sai Sasidhar and explore how organizations can implement Design Thinking to enhance their Agile projects.

While teams recognize the potential of combining Design Thinking with Agile workflows, only a small percentage successfully integrate Design Thinking processes seamlessly into their Agile practices.

We at Muffins have observed that the rapid pace of Agile sprints often results in design shortcuts, as teams prioritize feature delivery over user experience. This lack of user-centered design leads to products that are technically sound but fall short in terms of usability and user satisfaction. Many teams are struggling to balance the demands of Agile sprints with the time-consuming nature of Design Thinking. This often leads to rushed design decisions, resulting in products with quality issues or missed deadlines.

"Design thinking is shorter and inadequate in Agile, today!"

By blending Design Thinking’s user-centric approach with Agile’s iterative structure, organizations can achieve not only rapid delivery but also sustain highly reliable quality and therefore satisfactory user experience.

When Speed overtakes Design Thinking : Quality faces Crisis

Lets explore the factors contributing to this Quality crisis.

1. Lost knowledge between the ‘Requirements phase’ and the ‘Scrum phase’

Today, Design Thinking is often narrowly focused on the requirements phase, involving the creation of user stories and the designer’s perspective in collaboration with product managers and business owners. However, once these requirements are handed over to Scrum teams – Project leads, Scrum Masters, Developers, and testers, there is a significant loss in translation as the focus shifts to technical implementation. This rapid transition can lead to unexpected outcomes, where business owners and end users find mismatch between their expectations and the final product.

2. Design thinking is not fully extended to the Scrum framework

The whole idea is to integrate Design Thinking principles into the entire software development lifecycle, from initial system design to coding, testing, and beyond – which means extending the Design thinking to Developers when they design systems, when they code and also to the Testing teams when they write test case designs and execute them. The constant pressure to meet tight sprint deadlines (1, 2, or 3 weeks) often pushes Scrum teams to take shortcuts – say Developers jumping directly into coding without adequate upfront design. Many team members rush through implementation. Testers, too, face significant time constraints, struggling to balance feature testing with regression testing. As a result, design often takes a backseat.

3. Scrum teams often neglect Design Thinking  

When testing is not prioritized within the same sprint, a compounding effect occurs. As sprints progress, a massive backlog of tests accumulates, resulting in many defects towards the release. This vicious cycle forces teams to either compromise on testing scope or extend timelines. We have observed this issue across our clients and prospects.

4. Testing within the same SPRINT – a big challenge  

To maintain high quality along with fast delivery, test coverage covering all requirements needs to be increased. As per ChatGPT, teams face various constraints while running the sprint like – limited time, smaller teams, lower Developer-Tester ration (often 3:1, 5:1, or even 10:1). This gets further complicated with the dynamic nature of Agile development – which has many moving parts and frequent requirement changes. Therefore, balancing rapid delivery with quality assurance is a constant struggle.

To address these challenges, Automation and Continuous testing have become essential. Automating features developed in the current sprint not only ensures thorough testing but also enables their seamless integration into regression testing for future sprints.

5. Teams miss Design –> Teams miss Testing of Complex and Edge cases  

Due to time constraints, testers often resort to ad-hoc testing, relying on experience and intuition. This approach can be efficient in the short term, but can lead to missed edge cases or regression testing and inadequate test coverage. Due to this, regression testing becomes a big challenge during subsequent sprints. A more structured approach, involving detailed test design, can be a big help – by analyzing each requirement and designing comprehensive test cases, teams can achieve thorough testing and efficient regression. However, maintaining this approach within the constraints of rapid sprint cycles is still a significant challenge.

Balancing Speed and Quality remains a constant challenge for almost all organizations. What we recommend –

1. Generative Design + Automation

2. No-Code Automation with AI capabilities + LLMs and SLMs

In the Part 2, we will discuss our two recommendations, as well as Muffins, No-Code AI powered Test Automation platform, in detail. Should you want to know more about Muffins or schedule a Demo, do connect with us.

(Our No-code test Automation platform Muffins is far better equipped to address various challenges within software testing – It is fully automated testing solution that requires no coding expertise and leverages the power of AI to optimize Test designing as well as Testing process.)