Business Driver

In the aftermath of a protected health information (PHI) spill, an unexpected COVID-19 remote-work mandate, a steady rise in software development defects, and a poorly attempted adoption of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), the Managing Director for digital development of a large Healthcare payer asked Trexin for help. With technology playing a constantly growing and pivotal role in health insurance, our Client knew that poor communication, defect-ridden business applications, and missed software releases would cause her team to fall behind and materially impact her business customers. Confident that a more rigorous adoption of SAFe would resolve these issues, she asked Trexin to provide Agile/SAFe coaching and assessment services to guide her team and reset their trajectory.

Approach

Although using SAFe as a foundation to engage our Client’s team, Trexin tailored the engagement to the team’s situational needs, including an entirely remote work environment. Structurally, Trexin leveraged three impactful phases to make as large of an improvement as possible. Phase 1 consisted of a series of workshops and artifact review, where Trexin sought to understand the current state of the team and their relationship with SAFe, including both strengths as well as areas of opportunity. Most importantly, in Phase 1 Trexin engaged with team members on an individual, enterprise, and team level to understand the direction of the team, goals, and pain points to ensure alignment.

Phases 2 and 3 then consisted of a balance of SAFe education, individual and group coaching sessions, observation, and enterprise mentoring advocating SAFe-recommended practices pragmatically tailored to their specific needs. Throughout the project, Trexin created New Outcome Proposals to capture goals, next steps, and associated benefits to preserve focus area knowledge. And at the conclusion of the project, Trexin provided detailed next-step guidance and suggestions for the team to continue to evolve on their own and more fully adopt SAFe.

Results

Because of Trexin’s expertise in team transformation and Agile/SAFe concepts, we were able to uncover and resolve numerous issues and pain points that were deeply rooted in the team and not clearly visible. Additionally, our Client stated that we genuinely “over delivered” in terms of providing educational content and coaching. The coaching and mentoring provided by Trexin helped the team apply SAFe concepts, restructure meetings, and reduce waste and unnecessary overhead while improving the team’s overall coordination and communication. Lastly, the extensive set of training material left behind by Trexin will serve as a valuable reference and guide, ensuring the team’s success through an even more rigorous adoption of SAFe for years to come.