Adaptation over a strict plan

Plans help teams organize work. When requirements change, the plan has to change too.

UX work rarely stays still. Research can change what the team understands about a problem. Business priorities shift, and technical limits can appear during the work.

A fixed plan makes a team defend old decisions. New research gets ignored when it conflicts with the roadmap, and the team works around new constraints instead of reconsidering the problem. It may end up solving a problem that no longer exists.

A plan should help a team decide what to do next, but not decide everything in advance.

Adaptation means:

• Checking whether the plan still matches user needs
• Changing direction when research changes what you know
• Changing the process when it slows the work
• Using each iteration to decide the next step

Plan enough to start. When new information changes the problem, change the plan.

Plans are useful, but they aren’t permanent.