Improving a very large Scaled Agile implementation at a UK bank

This business critical programme was running across three departments with over 30 full time teams needing to co-ordinate across their delivery. This used big room planning events to schedule 3 months worth of work. I was working for a department within these events and noticing that my teams were struggling to plan. A lot of effort had been put into tooling to track progress but scope definition and high level design was not in a good place. I decided to work with the programme leadership to improve this situation.

High level scope definition

Initially the teams were working loosely together, with overall scope for their replacement IT system and related business processes being worked out largely in silos. Many were complaining about not understanding the big picture. They knew the upstream and downstream system connections but little beyond that. I wanted to get the teams to slice the work into end-to-end flows rather than building in pieces and trying to connect them. To do this I introduced service blueprints into the business analysis leadership team. This gave them the ability to model out high level business process flows from a customer, back end team and system perspective. It also highlighted current issues meaning processes could be improved. These flows became the basis of the teams high level planning.

Planning readiness

Now the high level scope was clear, the teams were able to build out more detailed backlogs. I introduced a new planning schedule where backlogs had to be ready before the planning events. Previously teams would turn up and try and create a backlog on the day and this was almost certain to fail. The events would be more about confirming dependencies and firming up commitment.

The impact of this change was considerable:

  • A clear high-level scope defined for each planning period

  • Redesigned processes with customer, back-end team and system improvements

  • Better prepared teams with issues flagged early

  • Improved inter-team design and dependency management

  • Teams able to plan out their scope for the increment period

  • Test teams clear on the end-to-end scenarios that would be ready

Want to learn more?

Does this problem resonate with you or do you want to set up a Scaled Agile implementation? Please feel free to get in touch.