I'm interested in the topic. I'll be at The Slanted Door reservation. If not tonight, let's connect tomorrow.

I'm surprised how many UX designers seem to take a passive attitude about agile. "Well, it's what our developers are using, so we'd better figure out how to work in it."

I don't think this is the right attitude. I see Agile as the antithesis of User Centered Design and it's "ready-aim-fire" methodology. Working at a healthcare company, our process must meet FDA scruitiny for "Good Manufacturing Process" and "ready-fire-aim" certainly isn't going to cut it.

I think the accountability Agile gives (scrums, sprints) are great, but not the core idea of beginning to develop a product without designing it first.

I am not taking a passive stance, quite the opposite. I truly believe that designing in an agile way produces better products. Doing so is not "giving in", it is realizing that by iterating through design problems and by working side-by-side with engineers you can bring a user focus to every detail of the design. Up-front design assumes that you can solve every problem weeks or months before actually building the product, and that is rarely (I dare say never) the case.

Leah Buley and I presented on this topic at the Agile 2008 conference and I've posted a copy of our slides here. Take a look!

http://www.adaptivepath.com/slides/agile08.zip

Dan & Chris,
Thanks for your comments & Dan, the slides from Agile '08, which I was not able to attend. I tend to agree that the opportunity for design attention to every detail is one of the best things about Agile. I also know that the only way I get that in the corporate environment is to be an evangelist of UX to the upper management, product owners, et al, and have found that requiring a "UX approved" stamp as part of the done criteria is how I get that leverage.

I know UX Week is over, but I am happy to keep talking about this topic if others are.

Anyone on the agile-usability yahoo group? http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/agile-usability/

I haven't really started participating there yet, but plan to check it out as a larger forum.

Thanks for the agile-usability reference on yahoo groups. I have requested membership and hope to discuss agile and agile methods further.