Labs Live: Agile

Thoughts and actions to help you forge the future. These are The Results of Labs Live: Agile.

Labs Live The Results

Agile | 25 March 2021

Introducing Labs Live

HR problem solving in real-time

Introducing

Labs Live...

HR problem solving in real-time

We're bringing together the brightest minds in HR to take part in collaborative, immersive live events where they have the time and space to focus on a pressing people challenge.

Facilitated by our talent experts and invited guests, we take a challenge or hot topic and work with you to produce actionable insight and solutions.

This is then fed back in the form of interactive content.

OK, but what is it?

Labs Live is an extension of BPS Labs - collaborative workshops to qualify recruitment problems, explore creative ideas and forge the future.

At our heart we’re HR problem solvers. We specialise in providing up-front, objective insight into how HR leaders can tackle their biggest people challenges.

Our first session

We partnered with PTHR to take HR Leaders on a collaborative adventure into Agile.

Our very first ‘pilot’ collaboration was designed for HR teams who…

Want to find more inventive ways to solve problems and deliver projects.
Are eager to promote flexibility, responsiveness, and inclusivity in their working patterns.
Need to respond to external changes more quickly or effectively.

Our expert facilitator

Perry Timms,
Founder and
Chief Energy
Officer @
PTHR

Perry has over 30 years' experience in people, learning, technology, organisation change & transformation.

Recognised as one of the UK’s most influential thinkers in HR, Perry is an international and two-time TEDx speaker and award-winning author and HR strategist.

PTHR's mission is defined as "Better Business for a Better World" and Perry is passionate about the value Agile working can bring HR teams and their businesses.

Connect with Perry on LinkedIn or check out PTHR.

The Hypothesis

or how it all began

The Hypothesis

Agile enables HR teams to respond to challenges with greater pace, efficiency, and effectiveness.

The impact of the pandemic has required HR teams to be agile. They've had to be responsive, adaptive and creative.

But there’s more to Agile than creative crisis management.

There’s a well-crafted philosophy of Agile put to work for inventive, iterative and inclusive ways to solve problems and deliver projects.

Agile working creates more innovative ways to solve problems and deliver projects. It promotes flexibility, responsiveness, and inclusion in working patterns.

Our scenario

We would divide attendees into three squads to begin the build of our initial product:

The creation of a culture of feedback

Problem statement:
We're not leveraging feedback as much as we should and this is negatively impacting performance.

Hypothesis:
We'd like to invest in a learning platform to aid improvements.

Vision:
We want to learn our way into creating a stronger culture of feedback.

The Method

The Method
In attendance

The brightest minds in HR

17 senior HR professionals in attendance, across three Breakout rooms (Alpha, Beta, Gamma).
Representation from a range of industries, including: Aviation & Aerospace, Food and Beverages, HR Consultancy, Internet and Utilities.

Our expert facilitators

Perry Timms – Founder, PTHR
Simon Conington – CEO, BPS
Rachael Allen – People & Culture Director, BPS
Andy Gunby – Account Director, BPS

What
we covered

An overview of Agile.
The values and principles of the Agile manifesto.
Agile teams (squad) model.
Agile development cycle for change projects.
Agile timeline for projects.
The main players in Agile projects.

The Results

What
we heard...

The power of Agile

The Agile approach has come to prominence as companies of all shapes and sizes have pondered how to structure the organisations of the future.

Today's high-performing businesses increase their agility and speed to market by re-organising their employees into networks of small teams.

The Agile methodology focuses on:

Individuals and interactions.
Customer collaboration
Responding to change.
Working prototypes.

Working in energised squads of up to 8 people, Agile enables us to better define and develop products of value.

The session was broken down into a number of collaborative breakouts:

Breakout 1 - Product Story
We needed to establish the elements, considerations and impact of our initial product.

Breakout 2 - User Stories
We grouped together our user types and their reasons for engaging with the product (as well as potential stumbling blocks).

Breakout 3 - Product Backlog
In order to create the product we would first need to note down a list of tasks for completion.
Breakout 4 - Product Roadmap
Now we'd established what needed to be done, it was time to order and prioritise into an Agile roadmap.

Alpha Mural Board

Beta Mural Board

Gamma Mural Board

Key Takeaways <br> and Resources

Key Takeaways

Think about small(ish), impactful problems you wish to solve. Follow the Agile principles, and most importantly, just give it a go!

Learn your way and in and maintain a safe space around you.

If you're not able to work with a qualified Scrum Master then don't sweat it. Look for those people who are good process stewards to be your product owner or guide. Anyone who gets process efficiency would be a good fit and they don't necessarily have to be line manager trained.

Agile creates greater efficiencies and saves time, therefore negating or minimising the effects of a 'culture of busy'. You may find some managerial resistance as certain individuals who are used to owning projects may begin to feel left out.

Agile works best within a culture of trust. Implementing Agile represents a step-change in thinking as part of a wider change programme.

Agile Resources

Check out Perry's 'Scoop.it' page on Agile in HR for a collection of curated content.

Highlights include:

Plus, here's a link to Perry's slide from the session intro.

About BPS <br> and PTHR

We're BPS World

In a nutshell, we provide the people who design and build tomorrow’s world. Throughout the last 20 years, we’ve established ourselves across the engineering, technical and professional services landscape. We work alongside partners who trust us to deliver tailored recruitment services designed to bring them cost and time efficiencies at scale.

But what guides us is our founding purpose – ‘people can be more’.

We want the best for the candidates we serve and customers we partner with.

And as the representative of its people, we believe your HR team wants the same.

Sharing in this goal enables us to move at pace and forge new ground with the people that matter most to us – our customers, candidates and colleagues.

What we can do for you

One partner described it best when they told us: “You take my recruitment problems and make them go away.”

We’re problem solvers and we spend the time getting to understand you and your unique people challenges.

By doing so, we ensure you’re set-up for hiring success and able to focus on doing what makes your business great.

Our collaborative workshops are tailored to your organisation. Identify recruitment problems, explore creative ideas and forge the future.

We partner with marketing and HR teams to attract more candidates, increase their quality and raise engagement levels.

We’ve designed, built and delivered talent and compliance functions across the world. So we know how to find the right people, keep projects on track and protect businesses from risk.

Sourcing, engaging and hiring executive talent is
a service. Going the extra mile to assess the market and imagine the future is a true partnership.

BPS World combines the best parts of these agencies to deliver a tailored talent solution for your business.

About PTHR

PTHR is a consulting business with a big heart and bigger ambition to shape ‘Better Business for a Better World’.

Their aim is to help create workplaces where people flourish, that are sustainable and successful, and in line with the spirit of Next Stage Organisations. They offer consulting and products that deliver learning and transformational work design; solutions and support; and create spaces for research and experimentation with progressive HR, OD & leadership.

They will:

Build programmes of work that help skill and develop your people with specific, tailored methodologies and approaches for work.
Produce materials to provide insight, models, theories, and applications to improve how you approach work and deliver for your clients.
Create a more collaborative, sharing and supportive environment for your leaders and teams enabling people to be more effective, efficient and purposeful in their work. Ultimately, this improves results, creates value and positively shapes the impact your organisation provides for customers, clients, partners and communities who you operate with, for and in.
Leave you with more capabilities, tools, and techniques to sustain lasting positive impact and continue to create value. We want you to start with us and succeed without us.
Shift culture, behaviours, and processes towards more lasting improvements that will bring additional and adjacent possibilities to support your reason for being and purpose.
Create tangible evidence of what has been realised in terms of benefits and value creation that not only proves the merit of our work, but provides clarity, learning, acknowledgment, and future directions for your success.

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Labs Live

Join us and play your part in leading the evolution of HR

Labs Live is where the HR leadership community comes together to solve their shared people challenges.

The format deviates from ‘push’ sessions. Labs Live invites full participation and delivers actionable insight and practical outcomes that HR leaders and their teams can take back into their businesses.

It's an opportunity to take part in something unique. To provoke, debate, share best practice and educate while also initiating change.

All we ask of you is your engagement and to come prepared with thoughts and opinions.

By offering up some of your precious time you can help lead the way in the HR space and create happier and more productive workplaces.

At BPS, our founding purpose is 'people can be more'. We're passionate about fueling the ideas that'll help fulfil this mission and we want HR leaders to come with us on this shared journey.

What will we cover?

We want you to help us set the agenda, but we have plenty of ideas of our own...

• Adapt or die. Is an agile culture key to success?
• How can HR lead on digital strategy?
• How can HR teams step-up and drive the strategic agenda?
• Re-imagining HR. How can HR remain at the forefront of change?
• A single super brand - is it time for corporate and employer brands to become one?
• L&D is dead. How can traditional L&D teams reinvent themselves?
• Should mental health be a strategic priority and where do you start?
• Diversity & Inclusion. Why doing nothing could be your biggest mistake.

The benefits

• Connect with great minds and make a difference.
• Greater impact and credibility when driving the strategic business agenda.
• Be the authority on the most pressing HR challenges.
• Investment in yourself and growth of your personal brand.
• Opportunities to speak in front of eager audiences.
• The chance to give something back to the community.