Agile gardening
Again, I’m going to tell you about how I use design processes in my personal life, not just at work. This time I’m doing rapid prototyping in my own backyard.
In August, me and my family moved from an apartment to a house. With a garden. This was for me a minus, I’ve grown up with a garden and sure, it’s nice, but SO much work and weeding and digging and mowing grass. What I did not expect was how different it is when it’s your own garden and not your Mom’s — and especially if you’re a project driven problem solver like me!
This garden we moved to, it’s bordering on forest land and the dirt agrees — it’s rock solid and most of it is just bare ground without more than a few blades of grass sticking up. I just assumed the previous tenant had had a large pool or something on the ground but according to the neighbour, no, it’s just bare. Also, almost the entire garden is underneath an oak — gorgeous, yes, but so. Many. Leaves. I’ve learned that oak leaves decompose very slowly, acorns start growing downwards first so you have to dig up a long-ass root as soon as you see something sticking out, and that an oak produces SO MANY LEAVES.
I also learned that the completely covering of oak leaves makes a great protective layer for what few plants the previous tenant left for us — including a strawberry patch that was already green in March because of it’s cosy leaf blanket. The enormous pile of leaves I had left in the middle of the garden when it started snowing had done the same, and underneath that pile the dirt had become moist and porous compared to the rock solid forest ground all around it. This whole discovery process of what oak leaves can and cannot do got me thinking. My garden is an unknown user, I don’t know it’s needs and behaviours. What the heck am I going to do with this garden?
I went on a desk research safari. Forest grounds can be rich or poor in nutrients, dry or moist, this or that. Okay, so that’s not much help, the one thing I learned (which I kind of already knew) was that some plants like to grow in shade. Next step, empathise — get to know your user. I started looking. With absolutely minimum plant knowledge (I know a dandelion when I see it, that’s about it) I looked at all the little leaves sticking out of the ground. There are some wood anemones growing, according to my desk research they like a certain type of ground — maybe the soil isn’t as dry as it seems? And as soon as I start digging, there’s a bunch of different little bugs and worms there — maybe there’s more nutrients in here than I previously thought? This way I gathered insights into my user’s life and behaviours, by observation and exploration. I also had an expert review conducted — that is, I invited my Mom and mother-in-law to look at the little plants and asked them what they were.
So I had defined the soil quality as forest ground with at least some nutrients in it, now it was time to ideate. Oh, I should also add that of course the stakeholders were involved in this process and we workshopped the need for a sandbox in a corner, the wish for a stony area, and to minimise the pain points for the customer (i. e. me) we agreed to have as little lawn as possible.
The most exciting part of this whole project has been that we’ve been on a very strict budget and all of the unknowns. This means I’ve not been able to do a complete overhaul and just cover everything in normal soil and plant normal things, but rather I’ve worked with the user collaboratively. The soil is from a five year old compost (the parts that isn’t just oak leaves still) The stone pathway to the sandbox is framed by random round rocks I’ve found in nature. I’ve taken two wild blueberry bushes from the forest out back and planted within our garden. An old plate is now a bird bath — well that was the intention, in reality it’s a wasp drinking fountain, those buggers have built a nest somewhere nearby. But the limited budget has also meant that we are forced to do everything step by step, which is a great agile way of working.
I’m currently prototyping what flowers our user can use. I went and bought six small different plants with different needs when it comes to sun/shade and water, planted them where my research indicates would be the most valueable spots for them, and now we wait. The place where the stakeholders thought a stone garden would look good, is that too shady? Will the sand from the sandbox help or hinder the stone garden? Are the ferns going to take over my entire flowerbed or wilt away? Will the plant that’s really more of a field flower work in the sunniest part of the garden? A lot of hypotheses to validate.
I’m most proud of my A/B testing of the wild blueberries; One plant my bossy PO (also known as my 6yo child) ripped out of the ground with a good slice of root, one I carefully dug out with accompanying grass and things around and plopped down in my flowerbed. Next iteration I will A/B test if it’s best to dig them up while they’re bearing fruit or afterwards — to make the test as unbiased as possible I chose two plants without flowers or berries for this first iteration.
If my hypotheses are validated, I’ll get a satisfied user with lots of room for expansion and growth for the business, my product owner and CEO (that’s my 2yo) will be happy with their executive area (the sandbox), and lots of new projects for me over years to come. For now, I’ll try to nudge my user away from being a huge ant colony and balance out viability/feasibility/desirability for both user and my company.
