Agile frameworks like Scrum and Kanban were created to manage software development, not design work. This leaves many UX practitioners wondering where they fit. Yet design work naturally aligns with agile principles through its iterative and feedback-driven nature. The main challenge is avoiding "mini-waterfalls" where all design happens before development. This separation creates harmful mindset barriers: designers believing only they should design and developers shouldn't have input, while developers think designers shouldn't touch code. These artificial walls directly contradict agile's collaborative essence.

Designers should instead participate throughout the sprint cycle. In Scrum, this means bringing research to backlog refinement, collaborating during planning, designing during sprints, and joining reviews and retrospectives. In Kanban teams, design work should appear on the same board as development tasks, with tags showing design involvement. Work-in-progress limits should apply to all tasks to maintain flow. Design adds value through problem framing, rapid prototyping, interaction guidance, user research, and design systems. By treating design as a continuous activity rather than a separate phase, teams create better products for users.