What's up? Hustle. Our podcast about product design. Uh, I'm Rick Messer. I'm here with Anthony. It's up Anthony Armendariz, the owner of fun size. And we're here to talk about some things today. We had a tough time picking a topic because they're just like a lot floating around the ether right now. But, you know, last episode we talked about on boarding, we talked about on boarding clients and on boarding users. And how sometimes it's interesting to think about the science behind those type of things the psychology behind them and something that we've been talking about in our studio a lot lately is off boarding. Um, so we thought that was really maybe a good topic to go into.

But before we do, we know that we had mentioned and a lot of little bit ass into, um, about our process, like the fun size process, because we sort of like been iterating on this thing for a while, like since we started since, like Anthony, like you and I did like the first contract or whatever. We've just been refining and refining, and it seems like we've fallen into a pretty, pretty good groove. I mean, we're still messing with it, You know, we probably always will be right.

But anyway, Anthony, you it's you had been talking to me a lot about just transparency and how, like our clients didn't tend to value that. And how so many values and, like Aspect ce of our process are based around the concept of transparency. Like maybe you won't talk about that a little bit And just let's just go through a bit of our process.

Yeah, so, you know, I think, um, people have a lot of options these days where toe spend the money, you know, they can hire freelancer, they could hire an agency. And there's lots of individuals and companies that create good work. Um, it's not necessarily good. Work isn't necessarily always a differentiating factor, but one thing that can be is the process and the other thing, the other thing that I found is is the most highly differentiating factor is the client experience. So last episode we talked about on boarding. That's part of the client experience.

The off boarding stuff, which I think will talk about soon, is part of the client experience and then this other part that middle. The process, I think, is the other bit the this middle part. You know, while we're working as I think we're we really shine because we're meeting the demands of of the local I mean of the current state of the market place. You know, that could change, but you know, a lot of the people that we work with, you know, as you know, our product companies and what they need are a team, right?

They're not looking for, you know, um, estimated work and fixed scope stuff. They need a team to just work

with them. And maybe for just like a sidestep. Could we talk about why that is not great? Like why? Why don't product companies air bigger companies like want that? What's the problem?

I think there are some projects where that makes sense. When you time box, it say like, well, I needed design and develop and release a product in four months. Okay, well, you maybe you can come up with a fixed price for that. But for all the other stuff out there, the stuff that we do you know, what were we essentially do for those guys know, is we put together teams that work with a client's team for a longer period of time. 369 12. Sometimes even we've worked the clients up to a year and 1/2 or were just constantly iterating on products that are in the marketplace or products that aren't in the marketplace. And I think the reason why people are scared of fixed, um, processes and deliver bols and money is because they know that it's an unsmiling way to use the money in time because there's no way to predict,

you know, rounds of revisions and, like, it's not like a website where you can say, Well, I'm gonna have any wire frames and then you're gonna I'm gonna allow you to have two rounds of revisions and anymore, and that's it. Changes scope. We address that by just not just removing all of that from the equation is saying, Well, this is your team. This team can work with you, um, at a certain pace, and you can kind of weaken tackle wherever you want. So I think that's just the way that the the that's just the expectation and a product group.

I mean, especially a startup company I don't know about, like the the the enterprises. But given that were hired usually by product management and engineering teams, that's the way engineering work. So I think it's from day one. It feels like something that they're already

used to. Yeah, because they're they're typically, like in a sprint, just like more modern. Um, modern companies are releasing software in an agile development methodology that involves, like pushing the needle for a smaller instrument, doing release and then iterating going back and, like, kind of falling like a loose road map. The problem is, and the thing that I was thinking, too with, just like why it's so much Well, I guess last desirable to have like a fixed bid type thing, is because,

especially the product, workman, like the scope, is constantly changing, like think of when the work that we did with being bored, you know, like, ah, we're hired with images like do 11 small thing and it turned it up. It turned out, you know, going into a lot, lot more product product work where we were over a long period of time with them, because you just they have different ideas We had different ideas, and we kept, like,

pushing the product into something that it is today that they would never, never would have if they just were like, Oh, sorry, we only have this one, you know, one with project or whatever.

Yeah, I mean, that's right, because, you know, if you don't structure things that way and then someone says Your client says, Well, great job on this iPhone app. Can we work on Android? Nope. The chain changes go way. We

can't do that. So and that's a problem because they have tohave like the contract revise or a change order. And then it's it's additional costs and then subtracting from like,

whatever and even if it's within scope, you know, you client once revisions and you're saying No, I'm sorry. You only had two rounds of revisions like, Yeah, I think people just know that that's not how you create.

So with fun size right there, just like, Look, we've got a team here. It is like you condone reserve like this. This is called a velocity, because we use just the pivotal tracker thing. But, um, you can always work on whatever you want. You know, like we kind of did lay out like the big things like we're gonna be doing this feature. Let's let's get into this a little bit But they can pivot as much as they want.

Yeah, the cell. This has been a very this sort of thing has been probably the the ah ha moment of like us realizing how to be successful in starting a business because all the way from sales. So, like, you know, we it's simple rights like, you know, we the way we communicate it is in the cells process, like, Look, you know, you have a problem. We have a team. Let's figure out what the problem is and then figure out what size team you need was that you know, how many designers, Right?

And then and then we say, Okay, here's a statement of work. Let's list all the things that you think you might want us to work on, right? And so we'll just simply right in, like maybe they only really wanna work on iPhone. But we'll encourage them to add android and website and Web application and branding so that if they, because it's high flexibility taken, have us work on any of those things. So then we're like you mentioned velocity. That's what they're actually buying, like it's not ours or deliver Bols. It's like the velocity is based on how many designers are on the team. So that's what they have is a velocity. And they can apply that velocity to anything on that list that they want so in,

You know, in in terms of contract goes instead of like, you know, stacks of pages. We're talking about two page contract That just makes sense, and it's easy to go. Um, I think people understand that on. And then you have Thio, you know, on the project level. You have to kind of help them understand what that means on the arm boarding, which is a little harder. But that's really essentially what it's really basic.

And could we just not shell like the like What is velocity and everything like that mean? I mean, I could take a swing at it if if you want, I want you take us with you. Yes. Oh, OK. So velocity right is related to the amount of work that one of our products signed lease can get done in a two week period. So you have two week period and we'll have 32 points within that. So points are broken down by whatever stories we work on.

Well, you should probably describe first. Like how we're that 32 points

is coming for him. Yeah. Okay. Great idea, because all right, so first of all, we have that all based on basically one product design leads time. If if they're purchasing a 32 point velocity with funds, I So, um, we got to that number because first of all, um, we work Monday through Friday, or I'm sorry, Monday through Thursday, a client work. So in a typical whatever eight hour day,

that's, you know, 32 hours as opposed to 40 hours. So we have 32 hours Monday through Thursday that you you can pretty much do whatever you want on. We'll have a planning meeting before the sprint, and we will create a current sprint using a tool called Pivotal Tracker and estimates stories is different from user stories as it relates to asana or or some other tool. Um, not asana. What's what's the other development tool you're here or whatever Yeah, like essentially, stories are like tickets, but in pivotal Tracker, they're called stories, and you can estimate each 11234 However many points. Each point equals something like about two hours. So if you we try to keep,

like each day's work to about three points, which is about three hours, I think it's important to know to like, I don't know, think of points as a direct translation. Two hours leg. It's just about two hours because we have to be, you know, related to time at some point, but it's very, very loose. So anyway, we'll get a spring planning meeting. We'll have all these stories in the backlog. Ah, that either we or together with the client have populated these stories.

And then we get into a Sprint planning meeting. We estimate it. We try and plan out 32 points of work over the next two weeks. The reasons two weeks is because you can. You can nail about, um, 16 points a week, essentially, because when you know 1.2 hours anyway, that's that's how it works. And, uh, we end up taking out a couple of points to just allow for just, like basic, you know, meetings. We have, uh, design review our

design of you. I love that part of it because it's so easy to communicate to client like you. If you want to design reviews a week. Okay, well, that's attractive from track. These points from the velocity, and then it starts to click to them like, Oh, you're really not gonna overwork your team. Like you're only going to give me, you know, the right amount of time that a balanced human being can, actually, you know, I know, but,

you know, that's that's what I like about the tool pivotal tracker, specifically just because you can't you have a velocity. And that setting dictates what you can put into a sprint. If you were a plan, and then you add like another, like crazy, big like six point story or something in there, guess what happens. Everything else that was blow it falls out of the current spread and pushes it off to the backlog.

And, you know, like from the client perspective, you know, or maybe even the design perspective to like, you are forced to think about what's important right now, like There might be five things that you want to do in that two weeks. But you might only be able to get to two of them because, you know, like you're saying people tracker won't let you put all of them in there. Only let you put what? What do you mean with that velocity can handle its restrictions. And then, you know, the client and the design director park design lead have to decide. Okay, Well,

what do we need to do now? And you know, this other stuff will end up getting waiting later and helps make decisions. You know, like I know some projects don't aren't always thoughtfully planned in advance, and it doesn't have to be. But, um, I'm able to go in and just make gut level assumptions very early on in my projects and, you know, be able to communicate to climb the first week. Like whether or not I think there's gonna be enough

time to get all Yeah, that was pretty cool. I heard you in a meeting yesterday with one of our clients that we just spun up a new engagement with saying like, Hey, I can I can go in there and estimates stories and have, like, the next, like quarter planned for you and like, an afternoon and you and weaken semi realistically tell you what we think it will take. Like if we think if it doesn't fit in, it doesn't fit. It's just really cool because you can, you can estimate, like on the fly kind of like if we want to drop something in which happens almost every sprint like, Oh, we need this. So we need,

you know, we should focus, focus here. No problem. Drop it into the current and you'll be the next story you tackle. But it bumps out everything else. So uh huh.

And it's also cool, too, I think as long as, like all the designers are team embrace that, you know, you don't have to be so married to the points that it's just estimates like, yeah, we used, like I used to get frustrated when I would see people doing more work because, you know, I was trying to make sure that people are balanced like I'm not overworking. And I would tell people like you've already hit. We've already hit the velocity. We're in good shape. Just like, take it easy. But you know,

high performers in a groove don't want to stop right so they can work when they want. And so what's awesome about that is that you can It's clear to, you know, for the climate, decide to see that extra with

Molly Overdeliver like, If our velocity said at 24 which only iscause 32 minus you know so many like Sprint Activity type regular things that it puts it down in like 24. Then we deliver on like a 28 30 30 point sprint. Then it's obvious that we're over delivering so we can handle at a lot of ways. But either way it's transparent, and it's fair because it shows like how much we're doing. But also, like, the client can clearly see what we're getting, because the other thing is when we're in the Sprint planning meeting, the client is there, and we're estimating each story like together, I think is like three points. Well, actually, you guys might want to consider this, you know, might be less or more

something. So that's, uh, weird right for Yeah, we're very weird for me as a designer to be in that. But now I can't imagine going back because the kimono is open. It's like, you know, I mean, you know how like here I am, Here's what I can do. Like I think this is gonna take four days, right? And then, you know, your client counterpart can say no. Actually,

I think you should spend, like, eight days on this. You know, I believe this is a complicated problem that's worthy of, but more time you can spend more time or you can

go the opposite way, like weirdness of like, fixed bid stuff is that designers are estimating it and kind of like, not sure there's no way to be sure, and there's no way to be sure on the client side, either. So you sit there and you don't estimate a week's worth or a day's worth you estimate like individual tasks worth, you know. And yeah, it sounds like a lot, but really, it's a one hour sprint planning meeting every two weeks. That's not that much, and it makes everything around so much smoother.

I also think the reason why our clients love this is because instead of saying like if there's a complicated task instead of saying like this is a complicated task. We're gonna put our heads down and we'll show you what we have in two weeks. We break that down and we say, Okay, well, let let's do a couple of days and then we'll review it and see where we need to go because it might be more complex than we thought or easier than we thought. And that way they can, you know, there. Oh, also along the same lines, is that it? Every projects little different, but but a lot of projects are. A lot of teams are sharing work with clients daily every other day every three days. But like even if it's only once a week yet our clients are reviewing. Our designers are reviewing, designed every four days. Yeah, versus in an agency model where you climb may not see something for weeks.

Yeah, yeah, Um, A. In general, it's actually like seems to be even more than that. There's more like a formal review every four days, but beyond that, there's, um, there's there's a lot of there's a lot of just just transparency. I mean, we give our our clients access to our drop box files. So there it is, like, that's what we're working on. You can only see it and they can also see,

like, the sprint, the pivotal, like current. Sprint is right there, and it's all part, like, prioritized top to bottom. Like what we're gonna work on. So we do it all like one. Okay, check that off one. Okay, check that off. So there should have never be any question as to what we're working on anyway. They want T.

O Ricks working on that story and then go in the drop box. You could see the files that I'm working on right now. I don't care. I'd rather than see it. If there's like some, like, monstrous thing that I'm doing that they're gonna is gonna cause a big problem. I'd rather know about it. I think I think it takes a bit of trust on our part to for our clients to not be too disruptive with that, you know, But honestly, I was kind of afraid of that at first, but I've never had a problem with it. I mean, clients are honestly, they're too busy to continually just sit there and look,

you know, at your design files all day like, Oh, I don't like what you did right there. You know, like they're not doing that. Like they just appreciate the transparency in the effort generally. And it makes me feel better just about, like my decisions. I can defend my rationale because we've been going through it together, like not separately.

Before lunch, I was having a conversation with Fi. I don't know how we got this topic, but we were kind thinking We wonder how often our clients even look at the tool, right? Like it may be more about, like, as a client do I feel like the output of my agency matches what I feel this high value, right? You know, instead of like penny pinching the hours or the the effort of velocity, whatever you call it, I think that might be the case. A lot of times, I think the it's nice to plan it and say Okay, well, in this next iteration,

we plan to deliver X, Y and Z, And if you deliver that than the client feels okay, that matches the value of what I'm You know of what I expected was. I know some clients were much more, you know, in the weeds, like sort of writing stories with us. And, you know, it depends, I think.

Why definitely depends every, like, some some quiets don't like, care to look at it there, just like that school And then like, they never log in throughout the whole engagement. But, uh, you know, it's how we work and the opportunity is there, and the transparency is there. And I feel like it kind of, you know, it enables that much more trust on both sides. It's just so easy to do it that way. Like, I don't like going into one direction digging myself down into,

you know, getting all invested in one idea and then bring it back. And then, like, I've been working on two weeks and I'm like, What is this like? This isn't a line or Yeah, cool design, bro, but it doesn't match any. Like, you know of what we're what? We're trying to get out of this sprint or whatever. I don't want to do that like I've had that happen, and it sucks.

So I mean, you know, I think the result Well, And then you know what everything else is transparent to like, You know, the we're talking constantly to them. We're together, we're collaborating. And the result is I thought what we strive for, I think is instead of feeling like an agency, we strive to feel like

a part of it. Yeah. Yeah, like we're jumping into their their their process with a but it's I don't know is love on. Um Hey, so we're gonna continue this conversation on be sure to tune in next week and hear the rest of the conversation about off boarding. Hope to see this things. Episode is brought to you by the Iron Yard. The Iron Yard in Austin is now offering a 12 week intensive program in user interface design. Theon yard will teach you the tools and skills you need to become a professional interface designer and then help you find a job. If you're interested in launching a new career in tech and design, visit their website. The iron yard dot com scholarships are available for the summer semester, wherein user interface design at the Iron Yard Life's too short for the wrong career. Hustle is brought to you by Fun Sized, a digital product design agency in Austin, Texas. Centuries. Delightful, innovative products for mobile Web and beyond. Visit us on Twitter at fun size or visit our website of fun sized taco.