The Challenge
Upon the completion of a three year major upgrade for their client Sainsbury’s online groceries system, there was a desire to shorten the lead time for new and ongoing changes to the site. Sainsbury’s expressed a desire to adopt an agile approach, so Salmon invited Agility in Mind to partner with them to expedite implementation and adoption of agile techniques.
Salmon had a successful track record in delivering complex, enterprise-scale projects using traditional management practices, but Sainsbury’s needed to be more responsive in bringing new features to market in this highly competitive sector while maintaining a conservative approach to testing and deployment.
Our Approach
Agility in Mind helped Salmon provide two Scrum development teams to their client. This was achieved by:
- Consulting with Salmon and Sainsbury to establish the desired outcomes.
- Making a plan with Salmon to provide training and support to their staff and their client.
- Delivering agile product delivery workshops for each of the teams and the Sainsbury’s stakeholders that would work with them.
- Mentoring Salmon project managers in their transition to Scrum Master roles and providing follow-on coaching support to the teams.
Following the initial Scrum training, Agility in Mind worked through a wide range of adoption issues such as adapting their traditional project governance model; dealing with very long manual regression testing cycles, and helping Sainsbury’s product owners work effectively with Salmon development teams.
Outcome
The first Scrum development team delivered a working release in eight weeks. Six months later, having established a successful model Agility in Mind helped Salmon and Sainsbury’s increase their capacity from two to four Scrum development teams.
For Sainsbury’s, new opportunities are now quickly exploitable. The first Scrum development team was able to quickly build functionality to deliver groceries to train stations for commuters ordering before noon on the same day. New competitor functionality could also be quickly responded to.
For Salmon, their long-standing client was delighted with this new capability. As a consultancy they now have a proven track record in agile product delivery, allowing them to offer these services across their client base.
