Are agile design approaches useful in designing for health? : A case study

ABSTRACT When designing interventions for health, multidisciplinary teams increasingly work according to an ‘agile’ process. Potential benefits of this approach are better knowledge transfer, stakeholder inclusion, and removal of barriers to interactions. Unfortunately, the question whether agile approaches are useful in designing health interventions remains as yet unanswered. To contribute to current knowledge, we analysed the process and results of a large multidisciplinary project with an agile approach. Our case study shows such an approach may indeed be a feasible method for the development of health interventions. The process allowed for a high pace, and good stakeholder inclusion. Some limitations also occurred. The agile approach favours speed over rigour, which hinders integration of user research and scientific evidence in the development process. Multidisciplinary cooperation remains difficult because of the limited availability of experts and stakeholders. Finally, the difficulties in documenting the process and results of the agile approach limit its use in scientific projects. Published at https://research.shu.ac.uk/design4health/publications/2020-conference-proceedings Vol. 2