The Challenge
The ambition of leadership team had always been to become a fully agile business and good progress had been made independently, but following an initial assessment from Agility in Mind it was clear that some underlying issues had to be further addressed in order to achieve their goal. Agility in Mind were invited in to deliver expert objective advice, coaching and support to help realise the team’s ambition for agile transformation.
Our Approach
LloydsPharmacy Online Doctor benefited from a package of support, focused on delivering:
- an effective leadership team, with new skills to work together and engage with the broader team;
- a broader team understanding of the vision and goals for the organisation;
- open, transparent and effective communication throughout;
- new agile-based practices and a common language throughout the organisation.
This approach would build momentum for change and leave the whole team with the confidence to continue the process of continuous change and become self-governing and independent of external support.
We focused on building confidence within the leadership team to lead, and the broader team to take responsibility for their own actions. This was achieved by a combination of:
- Leadership team coaching and mentoring – to help them build trust and alignment amongst themselves;
- Leadership team training in useful techniques, so they understood how to assess progress;
- Product management consultancy – the glue between strategy and delivery;
- Agile training for all teams in the agile principles and practices required to be effective;
- Cross delivery team coaching – to be effective in their use of agile techniques and take ownership for ongoing improvements.
Proving doctors and customer services teams can work in an agile way just as well as IT teams can
Outcomes
Agility in Mind implemented its flexible model of engagement, where initial training and immediate follow-on coaching has high impact. We then gave teams time to absorb, put into practice and learn, before returning to support and over time manage away any dependency on our team.
The team now has a shared understanding of how company strategy is mapped into products and services and how all areas of the business collaborate to bring that vision to life. As a technology business, it has brought the IT team, already familiar with Scrum, closer to the business people and doctors who now can work together using common processes and speaking a common language.
The whole company is now more product focussed and can clearly articulate product value and priorities, as well as a good understanding of the agile framework principles and practices. There is a deeply embedded ‘inspect and adapt’ culture across all teams who focus on product value and team behaviour.
Communication, transparency, visibility and trust are embedded behaviours in newly formed cross-functional teams and teams outside of IT the e-commerce & clinical teams are successfully using agile techniques such as stand-ups, retrospectives, backlogs, Kanban and Scrum boards.
Their most recent product launch was successfully delivered using agile planning and forecasting techniques taught by Agility in Mind.
What our client said
We are delighted with the help and support we have received from Agility in Mind. They have worked with us in a true spirit of partnership and helped propel the team from enthusiastic agile amateurs into professionals who are now taking the company to a new level.
Andy Sloman, Managing Director at LloydsPharmacy Online Doctor
