Case Studies

Requirement was to consult, advise, coach, and lead the Joint BioSecurity Centre (JBC) on how to develop a strategy to assess requirements and scope, map Value Streams and plan the necessary work. Also outline and cohere the relationship with the Test and Trace Service given the interdependencies and necessity for swift exchanges of information, decisions, and reporting.

Provided support, advice and coaching on Agile, P3M, SAFe®, and Scrum techniques. Advised on governance and project delivery.

Established links between the JBC team, other suppliers, the client assigned PMO supplier and project controls team in support of communications with stakeholders. Planned and established a system to keep all stakeholders appraised and to support the methods of planning to enable effective business transformation to the new service.

Assessed the maturity of the team and organisation and coached to higher levels of maturity.

Facilitated getting the essential planning done remotely and coached participants on use of the tools.

Facilitated discussions and decision making during the planning process.

Ensured internal and external communication, whilst improving transparency and sharing of information - ‘shared consciousness’.

Supported and educated the Product Owners and Managers on creating and maintaining backlogs for Features and User Stories.

Facilitated a full Programme Increment (PI) planning event remotely using Microsoft Teams and using a programme board format on a web tool with the following outcomes:

• Teams and Programme Boards
• Time boxes (iterations/sprints)
• Features
• Risks
• Assumptions
• Issues
• Dependencies
• Workflow (Value Stream)
• Impediments

Direct feedback from the ACE Director was “there is no way we could have achieved this much in such a short space of time. We should be doing all Government programme planning this way”

Define change strategy and deliver change management plans.

Carry out Organisational Agility and Change Characteristics assessments to establish the level of risk of the change to inform the change strategy. Produce programme business change strategies for Agile transformation to secure buy-in from the executives. Produce plans for Change Management, Resistance to Change Management, Communications Management and Training and Coaching plans. At each stage, we secured executive approval and authority to progress to the next stages. Coach leadership on the skills needed to execute the change management plan by being engaged and visible with active communication throughout the entire lifecycle of the change project. 

The business benefits resulted in the change management, resistance management, training management, and communication management plans. These plans mitigate the risk to the change initiatives which enables the implementation of the Agile change as a project and greatly improves the likelihood of success.

Conducted requirements analysis and derive specifications for MI tools. Conduct a proof of concept trial to select the most expedient and beneficial solution for ALM.

Matured requirement specification, engaged suppliers, facilitated demonstrations, and trialled systems including Digital.ai AGILITY and JIRA. The solution chosen was Digital.ai AGILITY. The parameters and taxonomy was tailored to the specific needs of the client to support Lean Portfolio Management and multiple Agile Release Trains and Agile Teams. Investigated feasibility for seamless interfaces to Power BI and set up integration support and training packages for users. 

The system chosen was implemented within 8 weeks. and has been running faultlessly for two years with over 200 supported users. This has generated significant interest from other departments who are adopting the same model. The benefits to users and stakeholders are measured by the increased transparency and trust in delivery outcomes and increased engagement from all staff.

Applying the principles of Business Agility, engaged the commercial staff and conducted specific training on Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) for Government with adapted modules designed to meet client regulatory requirements.

Facilitated pan-enterprise Commercial Working Groups to exchange best practice and to develop ways of working and methods to apply Lean-Agile contracting. By consolidating this learning, facilitated the joint working activity to produce more effective and legally binding Agile specific contracts. Developed the first roadmap for running Agile tenders with suppliers. Engaged, and jointly developed, with commercial lawyers schedules for Agile contracts designed to deliver maximum business value with built in incentives which create win-wins for both client and suppliers, all with greater transparency and trust through collaboration.

Outcome described by the Commercial Lead as “genius” and “I have never seen contracting for Agile delivery explained this clearly before”.

The changes in supplier behaviours means the client now has effective, legal, and proven Agile contract templates to work on all of its programmes that deliver significant improvements in business outcomes and products.

Provide and experienced SAFe® Change Agent to coach and advise on implementation of SAFe® across a large £1.1Bn programme. 

Our lead Change Agent has been a qualified SPC since 2019. As a change agent and transformation consultant, they coached and advised on set up of the full SAFe® Implementation Roadmap. This included:

• Establishment of a Lean Agile Centre of Excellence (LACE) as an Agile team with full a backlog and Kanban. 
• Training and coaching Leaders, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Architects, and Teams on SAFe®. 
• Facilitating and introducing ALM tooling (Digital.ai AGILITY) to provide MI.

Over two years, we led the SAFe® transition for the client using the Implementation Roadmap as the LACE Lead alongside four other SPCs. Reported to the Programme Executive on implementation progress and training at each monthly Portfolio Sync and quarterly Strategic Portfolio Review event.

Coached business units as Agile teams to work either Kanban or Scrum so that they have transparency and consistency. 

The Programme Portfolio Office Lead reports that they have focus and objectives they never had and “output has improved massively”.

Design and tailor targeted SAFe® training to match the context of the client programmes and staff backgrounds. Find ways to save the client on training costs for >200 staff.

Created specific ‘vignettes’ tailored to the client’s own business needs such that they were relatable. Facilitated joint client and supplier training to support the need for greater collaboration. Negotiated and procured SAFe® Enterprise Subscription training licences in order provide very large cost savings and greater value for money.

Brokered the use of the SAFe® Enterprise Subscription (SES) licences for significant cost savings to clients over sending candidates on individual public courses. Courses are delivered as cohorts and are more tailored, targeted, and impactful through the use of business specific vignettes and exercises to support better learning.

Candidates trained 

• Mar 2020-Apr 2022 - 85
• May 2022-Jun 2023 - 194

SAFe® Courses delivered since Mar 2020

• Leading SAFe®
• SAFe® Scrum Master
• SAFe® for Teams
• SAFe® Product Owner/Product Manager
• SAFe® Release Train Engineer
• SAFe® for Government (tailored to suit UK Government client. First of its kind in UK)
• SAFe® for Architects
• SAFe® Lean Portfolio Management
• SAFe® Agile HR

To coach the teams to employ DevOps methodologies and Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) processes starting with the Exploration Phase. 

Coached the Agile teams and their Product Owners to firstly engage with users by adopting customer centricity methods to develop features and stories. Facilitated collaborative planning events as the Release Train Engineer to ensure work backlogs of features as derived from customer collaboration were aligned to automated acceptance tests.

Coached the software development teams to optimise Agile/DevOps methods. Embedded techniques for Test Driven Development(TDD), Scrum and Kanban. Guided the teams and contracted Atlassian consultants on how 4th teams needed to employ JIRA toolsets to better facilitate capture of requirements into User Stories.

Conducted analysis of current ways of working and advised the programme leadership on methods of migration to SAFe® methodology. Set up an Agile Release Train (ART) to engage with users to discover the needs and capabilities for the applications. Coached and supported the RTE to become more capable and competent. The three software Agile Teams were integral to this process. Initially and for two Iterations the teams were underperforming and their velocity was poor. Trained and coached a Product Owner as the content authority and this enabled better focus.

These teams were able to demonstrate clear benefits of diligent agile planning and execution such that they increased velocity of throughput from 60% to 98% within three iterations (six weeks).