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Team productivity and efficiency
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Speed to market
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leaders coached in Agile
Owning Change in Financial Services
Our client, a large financial services organisation in the UK with a customer base comprising millions of individuals and enterprises, was seeking ways to be more responsive to market changes.
The Challenge:
Implement Agile ways of working to better access customer insights
Our client recognised that the marketing department was a traditionally siloed department within a large and complex organisation. It had few opportunities to draw insights and feedback from customers. Our client wanted to leverage Agile methodology – an innovative approach for them. This would reduce time-to-market, create a leaner workflow, and make teams fully accountable for end-to-end value
Our Solution:
Agile practice training, coaching and mentoring
Our client shared their vision; to truly put the customer at the centre of all marketing activities, with more iterative campaign development based on shorter feedback loops. They turned to TEKsystems because of our long-standing relationship and expertise in Agile practice. We were up for the challenge. We quickly appraised the Agile maturity of the teams and developed a coaching road map. This ensured that even while tools and processes were being embedded, the overarching mindset, values, principles and practices were already being applied.
Our interventions included: structuring and implementing Big Room Planning at scale; cascading objectives and key results (OKRs) for strategic alignment; workshopping core Agile meeting cadence; using Agile to deliver valueand efficiency; scrum master and product owner coaching; estimating on the basis of effort and complexity to reduce overwork; organising work around teams instead of individuals; communicating, collaborating and accessing Agile tools; value stream mapping for marketing campaign workflow; and prioritisation techniques for leaders. By working closely with our client, we used Agile techniques to restructure the marketing division so that it was more efficient, enhancing cadence for reviews to improve against measures of success and create strategic alignment using OKRs. Improving speed-to-market was achieved by reducing the number of hand-offs and approvals required for marketing campaigns. To make the transformation sustainable and effective in the long-term, leaders and their teams were coached in agile ways of working, which improved the level of autonomy and enabled more frequent sharing of ideas.
Powerful Partnership:
Embedding Agile at every level of the organisation
Agile transformation needs to be fully supported by an Agile leadership style, so we met regularly with the organisation’s marketing leaders to discuss Agile mindset, and how a balance of empowerment and rigour could be achieved. We also built in a process for continual improvement with regular coaching for senior leadership in partnership with the CMO, scrum masters, product owners and teams. Initially these were led by us, but we gradually stepped back and allowed internal Agile resources to take the lead as they became more empowered.
By working closely with our client we used Agile techniques to restructure the marketing division so that it was more efficient
TEKsystems client
Real-World Results
Our client has now established a strong foundation on which to build their agility, made possible by deep knowledge, support and coaching. Teams are now working collectively rather than in siloes and performance objectives complement Agile values. Work is strategically prioritised against shared goals cascaded from CEO level and ruthless prioritisation reduces context switching. A Lean approach means that low value work is stripped out and there is increased collaboration at every level of campaign creation to reduce time to launch. At an operational level, this means that workflow is visualised, a culture of test and learn has been established and higher quality results are being produced quicker by cross functional teams. Better collaboration with agencies has reduced handoffs and the need to rework. And clarity around targeted outcomes is creating flexibility with how these are achieved.
The innovative culture where marketers are opening up new ways of working, and new possibilities for engaging more deeply with their customers, is balanced by ‘just enough’ planning to clarify resourcing needs for a quarter. Systems and processes are in place to break down the siloed working of the past, with a portfolio overview of the work bringing leaders together to solve bottlenecks or pivot based on shared key results.
Overall, our partnership has left our client with the confidence to continue their Agile journey and bend in response to change – but without breaking.
Discover The Power of Real Partnership
Let’s talk about the world of possibilities and how we can partner to make them a reality.