Developing a strategy in five sprints
Challenge
One of our clients recently reorganised its business to an agile organisational structure inspired by the Spotify model. In this model, all disciplines are unified, with employees spending much of their time on product development within different tribes. However, this often leaves little time and attention for cohesion and organisation within the team itself.
Elemental was asked to help develop the right approach to build a strong culture within one of the teams. The aim was to both strengthen the team's organisation and ensure that the discipline would be better represented within the wider organisation. In 2020, we launched a strategy process to achieve this goal, culminating in a successful signing off of ambitions by the leadership team.
Approach
Our approach involved putting together a core team and developing a strategy through an iterative and co-creative process in five sprints. Here, we involved different members of the organisation to gather essential insights and build broad support for the strategy. The key topics we covered during the sprints were:
Reflecting & Learning:
We started by assessing the current state with input from the core team and colleagues. This 'current state' formed the basis for the roadmap.
Visioning:
By analysing trends and developments, we formed a vision of the future for the team's discipline. Based on this analysis, the core team made their own interpretation of the future of their discipline.
Mission & Ambition Building:
The team defined a mission and a set of ambitions, defining its raison d'être and the role it wants to play in the future. These ambitions were formulated based on internal and external interviews.
Roadmap:
For each ambition, outcomes and associated activities were defined and prioritised. In addition, a quarterly review process was established to keep the roadmap in line with the team's goals.
Iterative Process and Engagement:
We worked iteratively to formulate the shared ambition, with every sprint being a review moment to receive feedback and further sharpen the ambitions. This recurrent reflection ensured that the ambition was increasingly aligned with the organisation and increased stakeholder engagement outside the core team.
In addition, halfway through the process, due to the onset of the corona crisis, the transition was made from physical sessions to digital sessions in MURAL. Thanks to the strong foundation laid during the physical sessions, this transition went smoothly. In fact, the digital sessions often turned out to be more effective, as the core team and the way Elemental works were already well embraced.
Result
The result was a clearly defined mission, vision and set of ambitions for the team, along with a roadmap showing the way to achieving these goals. The team learned to break down big goals into smaller, achievable steps and implement them incrementally.
The process was successfully completed with a sign-off session with the leadership team. Thanks to the iterative process and broad involvement, the strategy was well supported by the organisation, ensuring that the team is now better organised and able to make more impact within the wider organisation.