Helen Walton

*Innovation imposed by a central function often doesn’t work.
*Crowd-sourcing innovation from staff is a better method, but ideas need to be nurtured and filtered.
*A formal structure or process can offer focus for people’s creativity, helping them find the time and energy to step out of the ‘busy week’.
*The ‘soft’ benefits as people build networks and develop new relationships may be just as valuable as the ideas themselves.
*If innovation is something your organisation claims to… Show more

*Innovation imposed by a central function often doesn’t work.
*Crowd-sourcing innovation from staff is a better method, but ideas need to be nurtured and filtered.
*A formal structure or process can offer focus for people’s creativity, helping them find the time and energy to step out of the ‘busy week’.
*The ‘soft’ benefits as people build networks and develop new relationships may be just as valuable as the ideas themselves.
*If innovation is something your organisation claims to value, then put real resource behind it: a budget, senior staff, people’s time, a process or structure. Show less

Key Takeaways
Keeping people engaged in large, distributed organisations is hard
Effective communication and collaboration means more effective business operations and more profit
Stop being initiative junkies and make meaningful change that sticksSharing things like personal objectives creates an environment of trust
Trust in distributed teams is key to high performance

A provocative critique of the suitability of Lean Start Up to many business contexts, as well as a personal account of how the method proved almost fatal for one particular start-up – Gamevy.

A restaurant to give homeless people apprenticeships? A centre to foster social enterprise? A ‘round the nation’ bike ride? Helen Walton, chair of the Spark Award judging panel, talks to PwC about the range of their charitable activities in the UK, and why they’re about business, not image.

Helen Walton interviews Places for People, this year’s winner of the Spark Award, sponsored by Gaia leadership. By putting people at the heart of how the company operates, Places for People creates a highly innovative culture with an inspirational purpose that delivers outstanding business results.

Take a demoralised group, inadequate tools and a low trust culture. Now transform under intense performance pressure in just 6 months. Helen Walton interviews Monmouthshire Children's Services to discover the changes they made to revolutionise their service, performance and happiness.

Paul Dolman Darrall is Chief Examiner for the BCS Agile Practitioner exam. Helen Walton and Dan Rough write the scenarios and questions for the BCS exam and also act as co-examiners. Every BCS exam script is marked by two of us (one lead marker and one moderator to make sure the other is not being too cruel or too kind).

Having marked the BCS Agile Practitioner exam scripts for over a year, we have become aware of several common issues amongst candidates who fail, as well as common… Show more

Paul Dolman Darrall is Chief Examiner for the BCS Agile Practitioner exam. Helen Walton and Dan Rough write the scenarios and questions for the BCS exam and also act as co-examiners. Every BCS exam script is marked by two of us (one lead marker and one moderator to make sure the other is not being too cruel or too kind).

Having marked the BCS Agile Practitioner exam scripts for over a year, we have become aware of several common issues amongst candidates who fail, as well as common points between those who do well and gain distinctions. Although we have provided general guidance and feedback to the BCS to help candidates, we decided that a more detailed guide would prove helpful – especially to those who have not sat an exam in several years! Show less

Helen Walton, discovers the detailed story of changes made by the Digital Retail team at Markel International, a project for which the won Runner-Up in the Spark the Change Award.

In July 2014, Spark the Change offered an Award for organisations trying to change the way they worked. We were looking for creative innovation and responsiveness, and a commitment to building happier workplaces. From 67 applicants, the prize was awarded to GCHQ. The acronym stands for Government Communications Head Quarters and it is one of the UK’s three intelligence services (MI5 and MI6 are the other two). In this article, Spark judge and writer, Helen Walton, interviews the Intelligence… Show more

In July 2014, Spark the Change offered an Award for organisations trying to change the way they worked. We were looking for creative innovation and responsiveness, and a commitment to building happier workplaces. From 67 applicants, the prize was awarded to GCHQ. The acronym stands for Government Communications Head Quarters and it is one of the UK’s three intelligence services (MI5 and MI6 are the other two). In this article, Spark judge and writer, Helen Walton, interviews the Intelligence Agency to hear ‘non-classified’ details of an exceptional innovation culture. Show less

We plan to maximise the chance of success, to achieve our goals, to coordinate our resources, to avoid or minimise problems. Yet in spite of these sensible aims, the plans we produce fall short of the ideal, worse still they may actually hinder our chances of success, blinding us to risks and making us slower and more costly. Even if we plan ‘perfectly’, unknowable and uncontrollable events can frequently throw us off course – how do we plan in the face of such overwhelming uncertainty?

When it comes to Agile implementations, at one extreme you find people who want a checklist of rules; at the other, people adopt the label ‘Agile’ without changing anything at all. Both attitudes are liable to end up in the same place – frustration.

Which Agile ‘rules’ can be changed and which can’t? How do we get started? How do you adapt Agile to your own business environment?

Whether using an old-fashioned spec or an ultra-Agile set of user stories, many organisations continue to struggle with the concept of requirements. We judge our projects by how well they measure up against the original requirements; we devote whole teams to writing, decomposing and managing them, and yet we continue to find the process frustrating and filled with flaws. The most important question remains unanswered: how do we really know what’s required – that is, what will prove valuable to… Show more

Whether using an old-fashioned spec or an ultra-Agile set of user stories, many organisations continue to struggle with the concept of requirements. We judge our projects by how well they measure up against the original requirements; we devote whole teams to writing, decomposing and managing them, and yet we continue to find the process frustrating and filled with flaws. The most important question remains unanswered: how do we really know what’s required – that is, what will prove valuable to our customers? Show less

Incremental delivery has major financial benefits by releasing value early. It also helps with marketing, incorporating customer feedback earlier to improve flexibility and with engineering, where lowering technical complexity is often a requirement of incremental delivery and short launch cycles help advance quality. There is also a real and measurable affect on team motivation, joint learning and performance as teams focus on seeing their work go live.

To take advantage of these… Show more

Incremental delivery has major financial benefits by releasing value early. It also helps with marketing, incorporating customer feedback earlier to improve flexibility and with engineering, where lowering technical complexity is often a requirement of incremental delivery and short launch cycles help advance quality. There is also a real and measurable affect on team motivation, joint learning and performance as teams focus on seeing their work go live.

To take advantage of these benefits, teams need to be able to split large ideas into smaller parts, and ensure that each of these parts has some kind of value. The session describes some of the key ways that organisations can break down projects into increments, and the story-mapping practices that have developed to make it easier. We also describe the tools and behaviours that enable incremental delivery, from architecture to integration. Show less

Most work - whether a task or a vast project - spends most time not in activity, but sitting waiting for someone to do it - in a queue. Because work in software development is normally intangible information, it is easy not to manage these queues and instead to let them build up. This session examines the nature of queues - the reason they form, why long queues get longer and why they cause so much damage. Especially revealing is the link between capacity utilisation and cycle… Show more

Most work - whether a task or a vast project - spends most time not in activity, but sitting waiting for someone to do it - in a queue. Because work in software development is normally intangible information, it is easy not to manage these queues and instead to let them build up. This session examines the nature of queues - the reason they form, why long queues get longer and why they cause so much damage. Especially revealing is the link between capacity utilisation and cycle time.

Queues can be measured, managed and in some areas radically cut - the effect can be revolutionary in shortening cycle time. The session shows the key areas to search for queues, the best techniques for making bottlenecks and queues visible to the whole team and estimating a cost of delay to reveal their impact. Key measures that can attack emerging queues are suggested, as well as ways to prevent their formation through looking at overall flow. This is a crucial session for those who wish to make changes to the way they manage the workflow in order to reduce cycle time. Show less

A batch is a quantity of work for or from a single operation, and since the rise of industrialism, we have trained ourselves to work with large batches because of perceived efficiencies. Waterfall development, big-bang launches, project approval gates ! these are all examples of processes that lead to large batches. This session considers the high price we pay for these supposed efficiencies - increased risk, value tied-up and lengthy cycle times.

By reducing our batches we can make some… Show more

A batch is a quantity of work for or from a single operation, and since the rise of industrialism, we have trained ourselves to work with large batches because of perceived efficiencies. Waterfall development, big-bang launches, project approval gates ! these are all examples of processes that lead to large batches. This session considers the high price we pay for these supposed efficiencies - increased risk, value tied-up and lengthy cycle times.

By reducing our batches we can make some incredible gains - most notably in faster delivery. This simple method is cheap and easily reversible, most importantly it improves flow without requiring changes to capacity or demand. These benefits, while real, are not always easy to harness. Breaking down batches takes practise and a little ingenuity. The session not only offers suggestions on ways to do this, but also how to attack the idea of a fixed transaction cost. If you want to make an instant impact on flow within your organisation, this session is extremely valuable. Show less

A batch is a quantity of work for or from a single operation, and since the rise of industrialism, we have trained ourselves to work with large batches because of perceived efficiencies. Waterfall development, big-bang launches, project approval gates ! these are all examples of processes that lead to large batches. This session considers the high price we pay for these supposed efficiencies - increased risk, value tied-up and lengthy cycle times.

By reducing our batches we can make some… Show more

A batch is a quantity of work for or from a single operation, and since the rise of industrialism, we have trained ourselves to work with large batches because of perceived efficiencies. Waterfall development, big-bang launches, project approval gates ! these are all examples of processes that lead to large batches. This session considers the high price we pay for these supposed efficiencies - increased risk, value tied-up and lengthy cycle times.

By reducing our batches we can make some incredible gains - most notably in faster delivery. This simple method is cheap and easily reversible, most importantly it improves flow without requiring changes to capacity or demand. These benefits, while real, are not always easy to harness. Breaking down batches takes practise and a little ingenuity. The session not only offers suggestions on ways to do this, but also how to attack the idea of a fixed transaction cost. If you want to make an instant impact on flow within your organisation, this session is extremely valuable. Show less

Customers don't know what they want, developers don't know how to build it, and things change! Painful as those problems may be, they are common, in fact, inevitable. Feedback is the only solution. It is not a perfect solution, and interpreting feedback may not always be simple, but it is essential - the only way that we can adapt and learn.

This session examines where, when and how organisations need to embed feedback loops within their development process, from idea evaluation to… Show more

Customers don't know what they want, developers don't know how to build it, and things change! Painful as those problems may be, they are common, in fact, inevitable. Feedback is the only solution. It is not a perfect solution, and interpreting feedback may not always be simple, but it is essential - the only way that we can adapt and learn.

This session examines where, when and how organisations need to embed feedback loops within their development process, from idea evaluation to acceptance testing and monitoring. This helps you set up feedback so that you gain the learning you need, rather than the reassurance you crave, and at the right point - when it is still possible and cheap to change. The session contains numerous activities and case practical suggestions for ways of garnering feedback, from qualitative prototyping to GREEDY algorithms, and considers their use and cost. A practical and comprehensive exploration of feedback in software development, this session is essential reading for almost all roles and levels. Show less

Most developers will have worked on a project where a lengthy integration phase ended up taking them over schedule. Integration problems often reveal painful issues that should have been addressed far earlier in development. It is a problem that is only likely to get worse. As businesses digitise their core processes, their systems increase in complexity. The difficulty of keeping this combination of customised bolt-ons and legacy code running increases over time, while the need to connect to a… Show more

Most developers will have worked on a project where a lengthy integration phase ended up taking them over schedule. Integration problems often reveal painful issues that should have been addressed far earlier in development. It is a problem that is only likely to get worse. As businesses digitise their core processes, their systems increase in complexity. The difficulty of keeping this combination of customised bolt-ons and legacy code running increases over time, while the need to connect to a plethora of external systems is also growing.

This session contains numerous case studies that focus on the high penalties companies have paid for integration problems. Others reveal the benefits enjoyed by companies who have succeeded, not only with integration in a technical sense, but with enterprise integration. Together these provide a persuasive argument for why solving integration issues should be seen as a valuable investment, rather than a cost to be put off as long as possible. We explore a range of techniques and practices from initial architectural structure (loosely-coupled with good cohesion) to continuous integration. Show less

A pull system that uses WIP constraints, Kanban believes in making work and processes visible in order to manage and measure them. The ease with which Kanban can be overlaid onto any existing workflow without disruption has made it a popular choice.

This session considers the five original principles by which Kanban defines itself and the most common tools and practices that enable easy implementation. From negotiating service agreements with other departments to metrics that enable… Show more

A pull system that uses WIP constraints, Kanban believes in making work and processes visible in order to manage and measure them. The ease with which Kanban can be overlaid onto any existing workflow without disruption has made it a popular choice.

This session considers the five original principles by which Kanban defines itself and the most common tools and practices that enable easy implementation. From negotiating service agreements with other departments to metrics that enable improvement, this practical guide moves far beyond the simplistic 'task board and wip limit' of which Kanban is sometimes accused. This session builds on a more in-depth explanation of principles about flow found in other sessions, and should be read in conjunction with Queues, Batches and WIP. There are assumptions within Kanban that can lead to disappointing results without a fuller understanding of whether and how to apply Kanban within your own team. Show less

A motivated team or company is not only fun to work in, it increases growth, profitability and reduces staff turnover costs. Yet despite maintaining expensive motivation programmes, most companies motivate their staff in ways that are inefficient or have unintended consequences. Challenging a system engrained in corporate culture can prove difficult, but this session provides a compelling argument, supported by meticulous research, to reconsider the way we motivate our teams and our… Show more

A motivated team or company is not only fun to work in, it increases growth, profitability and reduces staff turnover costs. Yet despite maintaining expensive motivation programmes, most companies motivate their staff in ways that are inefficient or have unintended consequences. Challenging a system engrained in corporate culture can prove difficult, but this session provides a compelling argument, supported by meticulous research, to reconsider the way we motivate our teams and our people.

We consider the factors that motivate or demotivate people and what steps a team lead, department head and senior executive can take to remove the obstacles that block people's natural motivation. A stretching but enlightening session, this looks at actions that immediately improve a team's sense of autonomy, purpose and drive. Show less

The fable of the tortoise and the hare is a story of slow and steady versus fast but flaky. It’s a story with parallels to software development. Moving fast means more time in market and more awareness, while an organisation’s agility or nimbleness makes it easier to respond to opportunities or threats. Speed and first-to-market also have associated costs and risks. Deciding how to travel depends on the organisation’s goal, but in general most organisations want to move faster. Despite striving… Show more

The fable of the tortoise and the hare is a story of slow and steady versus fast but flaky. It’s a story with parallels to software development. Moving fast means more time in market and more awareness, while an organisation’s agility or nimbleness makes it easier to respond to opportunities or threats. Speed and first-to-market also have associated costs and risks. Deciding how to travel depends on the organisation’s goal, but in general most organisations want to move faster. Despite striving towards this, few organisations deliver software and IT projects as fast as they, or as their customers, would like. Instead they are wedded to a measure called ‘on time’ delivery, which has unintended results - often making them slower and less flexible.

Delay has an associated cost that can be evaluated and measured. This session shows you how to analyse and make judgements using the cost of delay as well as other measures to ensure you are focused on the right outcome. This offers the correct paradigm with which to explore end-to-end flow within your organisation, allowing you to pinpoint opportunities for optimising flow, eliminating delays and enabling faster delivery.
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Wherever resource is constrained - time, money, people - choices have to be made about which project, feature or requirement we will focus on first, or whether to do them at all. How we make that choice is not always simple because value can mean different things to different people. Is the decision based on revenue, time-sensitivity, risk, cost or a combination of them all? Investing your resource in the right projects and even ordering what you deliver within those projects can have a radical… Show more

Wherever resource is constrained - time, money, people - choices have to be made about which project, feature or requirement we will focus on first, or whether to do them at all. How we make that choice is not always simple because value can mean different things to different people. Is the decision based on revenue, time-sensitivity, risk, cost or a combination of them all? Investing your resource in the right projects and even ordering what you deliver within those projects can have a radical impact on profitability. Indeed, it can mean the difference between success and failure.

In this session we consider how most organisations currently manage prioritisation at both the micro and the macro levels and the common pitfalls into which they are thrown. We go on to examine the key different ways that exist in order to prioritise; the benefits and disadvantages of using exact numbers or relative prioritisation, and the key tools and calculations that will help you. This session is closely connected to incremental delivery and feedback - the other behaviours that will enable successful implementation and correction of prioritisation tools. Together these form the building blocks of agile delivery and will help you make better decisions, faster. Show less

Many brilliant thinkers have proposed rational, logical solutions for problems in IT; solutions which have not been adopted. This session points out how people in IT and business often behave in ways that are non-rational, because they are relying on internal 'rules of thumb' or gut instincts. Even when we accept a new solution, if it runs counter to our inner rule of thumb, as soon as we are under pressure, we revert to our previous decision-making rules.

This session looks at the inner… Show more

Many brilliant thinkers have proposed rational, logical solutions for problems in IT; solutions which have not been adopted. This session points out how people in IT and business often behave in ways that are non-rational, because they are relying on internal 'rules of thumb' or gut instincts. Even when we accept a new solution, if it runs counter to our inner rule of thumb, as soon as we are under pressure, we revert to our previous decision-making rules.

This session looks at the inner rule of thumb intuitions that guide business decisions in IT. This is an essential first-step for anyone seeking to understand and implement the solutions to flow problems proposed in the following 'Flow' sessions. Without understanding the points at which these counter-intuitive solutions clash with your and others' rules of thumb, you will face challenges that may derail any implementation. The session helps you prepare personally for change and guide others effectively as well. Show less

Of the various agile methods and practices which have emerged in recent years, probably the most famous and successful is Scrum, which describes itself as a 'framework' for developing software. Popularity carries a certain risk - the more people adopt or use an idea, the more likely it is to be mistranslated, misunderstood or misapplied. This session provides a thorough, grounding in Scrum, providing you with all you need to get started on implementation.

We firmly believe, however, that… Show more

Of the various agile methods and practices which have emerged in recent years, probably the most famous and successful is Scrum, which describes itself as a 'framework' for developing software. Popularity carries a certain risk - the more people adopt or use an idea, the more likely it is to be mistranslated, misunderstood or misapplied. This session provides a thorough, grounding in Scrum, providing you with all you need to get started on implementation.

We firmly believe, however, that a description of practices is insufficicent to create change. Use this session in conjunction with more others on the thinking behind specific principles such as prioritisation, feedback and collaborative team working. For specific engineering practices that support Scrum, consider sessions in our Quality theme. With these, you can avoid the problems over which many organisations have stumbled when trying to apply Scrum. Show less

Hundreds of books have been written on team-working; team-building courses are perennially popular, and every CV insists the applicant is a 'team player'. Team is obviously an important concept for modern business, but most individuals will have experienced the frustrations of non-working teams as well as the special magic of teams that work as more than the sum of their parts.

This session explores the special attributes of a team - why teams work and where they should best be used… Show more

Hundreds of books have been written on team-working; team-building courses are perennially popular, and every CV insists the applicant is a 'team player'. Team is obviously an important concept for modern business, but most individuals will have experienced the frustrations of non-working teams as well as the special magic of teams that work as more than the sum of their parts.

This session explores the special attributes of a team - why teams work and where they should best be used, since a team - with its specific demands and needs - may not always be the best solution. The session goes through the prerequisites for setting up a team correctly with a clear, compelling, shared purpose to how to increase the chances of high-performance and deal with problems. For those setting up or working within a team, this session is essential reading. Show less

Trade-offs are essential within any project or organisation - cost, speed, risk and flexibility among others. Yet decreasing cycle time actually helps with most of these, by shortening the feedback cycle. Previous sessions provide an in-depth exploration of the tools which help to decrease cycle time. This highly-practical session examines the combinations in which the tools should be used to optimise flow depending upon the trade-offs that best suit your organisation. It also explores… Show more

Trade-offs are essential within any project or organisation - cost, speed, risk and flexibility among others. Yet decreasing cycle time actually helps with most of these, by shortening the feedback cycle. Previous sessions provide an in-depth exploration of the tools which help to decrease cycle time. This highly-practical session examines the combinations in which the tools should be used to optimise flow depending upon the trade-offs that best suit your organisation. It also explores concurrent engineering, overlapping activities so as to reduce cycle time, discussing the benefits and risks and how to manage the team's external dependencies.

We discuss the real difficulty that many organisations have in reducing cycle time - the need to give up on certainty or a hard delivery date and schedule. The session shows how to provide greater predictability to actually increase control, offering greater confidence to external departments and customers. This session is immensely valuable to anyone trying to decide how and where to improve flow and which tools they should focus on first. Show less

The Agile manifesto opens with the statement, 'our highest priority is to satisfy the customer'. Everyone knows that the customer is important, right? And yet there are many organisations that have failed because they have lost sight of the customer's needs. It's not always easy, but knowing how to give your customers what they want when they may not even know themselves is what successful innovation is all about.

This session examines the role and importance of customers and how to find… Show more

The Agile manifesto opens with the statement, 'our highest priority is to satisfy the customer'. Everyone knows that the customer is important, right? And yet there are many organisations that have failed because they have lost sight of the customer's needs. It's not always easy, but knowing how to give your customers what they want when they may not even know themselves is what successful innovation is all about.

This session examines the role and importance of customers and how to find them - which for an IT department with many internal 'customers', may not always be straightforward. A host of techniques - from the role of a product owner to validated learning - help you select and focus on ideas that will grow value to the customer and keep customer priorities at the heart of IT solutions. Show less

Work-in-progress constraints are the heart of the Kanban methodology gaining popularity in some organisations. Understanding why WIP constraints work and their effects on work flow, queues and delivery are essential for anyone considering adopting 'pull' practices. The session explains the principles of visualising work, signalling, self-management and matching work to capacity. As well as advising of differing ways of limiting WIP, the session examines potential problems and the likely… Show more

Work-in-progress constraints are the heart of the Kanban methodology gaining popularity in some organisations. Understanding why WIP constraints work and their effects on work flow, queues and delivery are essential for anyone considering adopting 'pull' practices. The session explains the principles of visualising work, signalling, self-management and matching work to capacity. As well as advising of differing ways of limiting WIP, the session examines potential problems and the likely pitfalls and errors - signs that system is not working for your organisation.

Firmly practical in nature, the session will help you pick an initial WIP limit and monitor progress via continual assessment and enhanced measurement of cycle time. It is a valuable session for organisations who face lengthy queues and slow cycle times and need to make changes without the luxury of extra capacity. Show less