Halton wanted to adopt agile methods across the organisation to improve customer and employee experience and streamline product development. Taskmill supported Halton’s agile transformation through tailored training, Agile Coaching and four different pilot projects that put agile ways of working into practice.
Halton is a family-owned global technology company specialising in indoor air solutions for demanding environments. The company designs, manufactures and delivers indoor environment solutions for spaces ranging from healthcare facilities to marine vessels. Its mission is to enable people’s wellbeing in these different environments.
“Halton’s growth strategy focuses on prime quality customer experience, innovative digital products and services as well as employee’s strong know-how and commitment. To further improve our customer and employee experience and streamline our product development we would like to utilize agile methods through our organization”, says Managing Director Anu Saxen.
In this mission, Taskmill and Taskmill’s agile professionals came to help.
The agile transformation started with tailored training
Taskmill designed a tailored agile learning programme for Halton’s employees and designated change agents. The first training sessions brought together a wider group of around 40 employees and focused on agile values and principles as well as methods such as Scrum and Kanban.
A smaller group of Halton’s change agents then deepened their skills through Scrum Master and Product Owner training. The training was delivered in short, half-day modules approximately one week apart.
This approach gave participants an opportunity to apply what they had learned between sessions. The shorter modules were also easier to fit around their day-to-day work.
Four different pilots put agile methods into practice
Immediately after the first training sessions, four pilot teams began experimenting with agile ways of working with support from a Taskmill Agile Coach. The pilots were deliberately selected from different areas of the business to generate learnings from a range of contexts. Two teams focused on solution development, one on software development and one on physical product development.
Because the teams worked in very different environments, there was no single agile method that suited them all. Instead, each team adopted the approach that best supported its needs. Some teams used Scrum, others Kanban, while others adopted a Scrumban-style approach.
The uniting issues in Halton’s agile model were for example regular reflection of one’s own doing, making the work transparent and continuous prioritizing of the backlog. For physical products design, manufacturing and validation are separate phases, each of which must be completed before the next one can begin. Taskmill’s and Halton’s experts focused on making each step of the product process agile.
The agile transformation itself was managed with agility
Halton and Taskmill also applied agile principles to the transformation itself. Progress was reviewed regularly and the transformation backlog was continuously prioritised. Feedback from the pilot teams played an important role in guiding the work.
Retrospectives were also used throughout the transformation to reflect on progress and adjust the direction when necessary.
“We are very pleased with how Taskmill’s professionals have supported us in adopting and scaling the agile methods through our business. It has been wonderful to see how a new way of doing things has developed eureka moments in our long-term professionals. This is a good way to continue our agile journey”, HR Director Anne-Marie Ruohonen sums up.