Breathing Room for Delight
Summary
Over the past few years, the digital team at AusPost has matured into one of the most well-functioning agile trains in Australia. The challenge in this journey to success was to ensure how design and discovery retain their customer centricity in an environment of rapid production. The need was to continue to be proactive instead of reactive in the approach to problem-solving. Some of the challenges were: To ensure there was enough room for the right amount of research for the right problem while ensuring rapid delivery. To ensure that all members of the team from Product to Development could collaborate like a true cross-functional team to come up with solutions to problems. To ensure the team established the right metrics that spoke to the experience. The talk will be a case study of how the Design team experimented with various methodologies to create more breathing room for design-led problem-solving in the agile train.
Key Insights
-
•
Early visions must balance ambition with technical feasibility to avoid unrealistic stakeholder expectations.
-
•
Collaborating early with engineering ensures technical constraints shape feasible designs.
-
•
Quick agile iterations without sufficient customer research can lead to reactive, tech-heavy solutions.
-
•
Cross-channel initiatives require dedicated time and space for proactive problem solving.
-
•
Design sprints are valuable for small focused problems but inadequate for complex, multi-dependency challenges.
-
•
Investing heavily in trendy methodologies without problem clarity can waste resources and stakeholder trust.
-
•
Separating discovery and delivery into parallel tracks creates breathing room for thoughtful design and faster delivery.
-
•
Connecting roles across discovery and delivery is crucial to maintain dialogue and alignment in an enterprise context.
-
•
Establishing a continuous culture of measuring and learning enables ongoing optimization post-delivery.
-
•
Flexible frameworks and push-pull partnerships allow large enterprises to tailor agile and design practices effectively.
Notable Quotes
"There’s no breathing room for design to conceive and execute a delightful solution in an enterprise."
"SAFE is essentially a software development methodology, and fitting experience design into it has been a constant trial and error."
"While we built amazing visions, it would take around three years to build the technical capabilities and integrations needed."
"Quick agile experiments made experiences technically feasible but led to tech-heavy solutions with little customer focus."
"Design sprints were good but not appropriate for our team’s maturity or complex multi-channel problems."
"Finding the right method for the problem is important; don’t drink the Kool-Aid just because the preacher says to."
"Discovery and delivery run parallel without a time dependency on each other, giving breathing room to think and act."
"Design can no longer sit in a corner and complain about not having a seat at the table; partnerships enable progress."
"A brick and mortar enterprise with multiple operations will not always have a prescribed process; you need to carve what works for you."
"It’s never over; it’s a continuous process of improvement."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Two-thirds of our internal team had experienced a late or lost delivery, reflecting real customer frustration."
Anat Fintzi Rachel MinnicksDelivering at Scale: Making Traction with Resistant Partners
June 9, 2022
"I’m here to call b******* on empathy."
Cassini Nazir Meah LinThe Dangers of Empathy: Toward More Responsible Design Research
March 27, 2023
"Langauge is what shapes us, and extracting keywords helps us create narratives to understand how people think."
Andrea GallagherThe Problem Space
May 16, 2019
"I want you to pay close attention to these talks to get the frameworks and language to include these topics."
Saara Kamppari-MillerTheme Three Intro
October 4, 2023
"Every group has their own vocabulary that signals belonging, but jargon can become a barrier to understanding."
Joshua GravesWe Need To Talk: Managing Ludicrous Requests at Work (Part 3 of 3)
May 12, 2025
"Screen reader users scored in the low to mid 50s on our scale while magnification users scored around 70 and alternative navigation users around 60."
Sam ProulxSUS: A System Unusable for Twenty Percent of the Population
September 29, 2021
"This tool is not an easy button; it enhances what we do by giving us confidence faster, not replacing human insight."
Gillian Salerno-Rebic Mark MicheliFrom Insight to Impact: How JourneySpark Used WEVO Pulse + Pro to Drive a 50% Lift in Ad Engagement
June 11, 2025
"Dedicated staffing gives designers deep vertical mastery but limits horizontal experience."
Alicia MootyDesign Staffing Models
September 30, 2021
"We don't assume companies intentionally fail certain audiences; it’s often about awareness and lacking champions."
Suzan Bednarz Hilary SunderlandAccessibilityOps for All
January 8, 2024
