Increase speed, improve visibility and better manage change with our transformative Agile services.
Unlocking the power of Agile principles is about so much more than implementing a software development methodology; it requires a cultural shift across teams and organisations. As practitioners of Agile software development ourselves, at Box UK we’re ideally placed to support you in making this shift – helping transform your organisation into one that innovates, leads, adapts and delivers, successfully and consistently.
Drawing on a range of expert Agile services, we’ll put together a tailored programme of activity to support you in your journey, whether you already have elements of the Agile framework in place or are looking to carry out a complete business overhaul.
Our dedicated consultants will guide your transition to Agile by highlighting current strengths in your setup that you can build upon, as well as areas to improve, while our Agile coaching programmes ensure that your team has the knowledge and skills they need to address real-world challenges and achieve real-world ambitions. We also offer Agile training providing an introduction to the approach and its benefits, as well as courses focusing on specific elements of the framework depending on your unique situation and needs.
Agile consultancy services
Our Agile consultants have helped numerous organisations increase speed, improve visibility and better manage change, having delivered software development transformation consultancy to clients across a diverse set of industries, from a sporting governing body through logistics and automotive firms to universities and membership institutions.
We truly understand the real-world issues relating to the application of Agile concepts, and know how to practically resolve them while safeguarding flexibility, quality and commercial results. This makes us ideally placed to support you throughout your Agile journey – guiding you every step of the way for a smooth transition that delivers real benefits.
"On seeing the output from the first series of sprints, we've shared details of the project across BCS as a model of Agile processes working to achieve great results quickly."
Transform your organisation
Whether you already use elements of Agile project methodologies and are looking to strengthen your skills, or have come to the approach to support your wider digital transformation strategy objectives, our consultants will begin by assessing your current setup. This allows us to understand what changes need to be made to ensure you get the most out of the approach – looking at the critically important cultural considerations as well as issues surrounding process, team formation and organisational structure.
Any insights we uncover are fed into clearly documented plans that will put you on the path to Agile victory. We know that one size doesn’t fit all, so your transformation plan will be unique to you – combining elements from disparate methodologies and supported with collaborative workshops and mentoring sessions from our Agile consultants.
"The programme of Agile coaching Box UK has delivered over the past 12 months has been invaluable in helping us work more flexibly, responsively and transparently."
Elin Lloyd Jones
Head of Innovation and Business Engagement, Cardiff University
Agile coaching services
While Agile has been popularised through software development, its project management principles are relevant and effective across a whole range of industries and departments, and can prove particularly valuable in supporting an organisation’s digital transformation strategy.
Our Agile coaching consultants design and deliver transformative programme to provide you and your team with the knowledge and skills needed not just to do Agile, but to be Agile – responsive, flexible and nimble yet constantly focused on the goal in hand.
With our team of expert Agile coaches, we specialise in bespoke and consultative Agile coaching services – where we’ll work with you to define a programme of activity based on your specific context and pain points; for example development in Scrum, Agile reporting, enterprise Agile coaching, remote working and Agile, or what happens in a Sprint.
Whatever your particular needs however, our Agile coaching consultants will give you an understanding of the core principles and practices associated with the Agile framework, and a roadmap for implementing these within your specific environment.
You’ll also walk away from Agile coaching having understood:
- Roles and responsibilities in an Agile team
- The importance of prioritisation, and methods to achieve this
- Methods for Agile planning, scoping and estimation
- The delivery structure in Agile projects
- The critical importance of iteration, collaboration and feedback – and how these principles help deliver better projects and products
Agile training courses
As well as tailored Agile coaching services, we also offer Agile training courses, taking place on a one-to-one basis or for groups of up to 12 people.
During these sessions we’ll share with your team key Agile principles, highlighting the approach’s features and benefits. And since theory can only get you so far, we also fill the session full of practical Agile tips that you can put into practice as soon as the course is finished.
Your Agile training course may cover:
- Introduction to Agile
- Introductory requirements gathering
- User stories and acceptance criteria
- User story mapping
- How to run retrospectives
- Introduction to Kanban
- Sprint reviews and user acceptance testing
- Agile business analysis
Jaguar Land Rover
To stay competitive, it’s critical for automotive manufacturers to ensure their software engineering practices remain at the cutting-edge.
Our technical and business consultants have helped Jaguar Land Rover do just that, by delivering prioritised recommendations to support their diagnostics team in a move towards Agile methods of working, which not only help safeguard the velocity, quality and predictability of releases, but also enable the organisation to react more rapidly to new trends and opportunities.
BACP
When they embarked on a major rebrand, the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy wanted to ensure their processes were optimised to support not only its success, but that of all subsequent projects too.
Working with an expert Box UK Agile coach delivered against these objectives, not only increasing transparency, engagement and communication – and speeding up the delivery of tasks – but also helping drive cultural changes to ensure a solid and sustainable transformation journey.
Risk Decisions
When Risk Decisions asked Box UK to help enhance the performance of their risk management tool, we not only delivered designs that did just this, but also introduced them to new ways of working that would help ensure long-term success.
Through regular ‘surgeries’ the client was able to embrace Agile techniques that encouraged iterative review and testing, providing an efficient and effective way to resolve problems encountered as the new tool began to take shape and supporting a more user-centred approach.
Development Team of the Year
Best Digital Response to the Crisis – SME
Agile Consultancy of the Year
FAQs
What is Agile transformation?
The successful adoption of Agile principles requires more than just the installation of a software development methodology, and a scattershot approach can lead to uncoordinated team-working, operational disconnects, siloes and unnecessary risk. Agile transformation therefore touches upon all aspects of an organisation, from project delivery to underlying business processes, communications and people management.
For organisations seeking to unlock the benefits of the approach – which include greater responsiveness, quicker time-to-market and increased innovation – undertaking a programme of Agile transformation helps ensure Agile concepts are fully embedded into the fabric of their culture, and that these are aligned with the diverse needs and expectations of business stakeholders.
Agile transformation programmes begin with a review of your current business situation, use contexts, areas of focus and pain points. Working with specialist Agile consultants you’ll then collaboratively define a roadmap of work to optimise your existing ways of working and introduce new processes focused on iteration, collaboration and feedback. Agile transformation is also a long-term initiative, incorporating regular review points to measure success and identify areas for further incremental improvement.
Organisations from across a wide range of sectors can benefit from Agile transformation, alongside those focused on agile software development (where the approach originated). Your Agile transformation consultancy should focus on the specific requirements of your industry and business, to ensure any recommendations are tailored to deliver maximum value and impact.
What is Agile consulting?
Agile consulting is a key element of the agile transformation process, providing you with a roadmap to guide you on your journey towards driving an Agile delivery approach, and instilling long-term cultural change. In addition to Agile transformation consultancy, Agile consulting services can be tailored to focus on specific areas of your business or processes, covering areas such as Agile software development consulting, new team set-up and distributed working, and targeted goals such as improving efficiency, increasing visibility and fostering greater communication and collaboration.
Agile consultancy engagements encompass assessment, implementation and coaching activities, drawing on a wide range of tools and techniques to equip your team with the knowledge and skills they need to work more efficiently and effectively. Your Agile consultants will help you define a tailored programme of work based on your specific drivers, helping support long-term improvement and change.
What is the difference between an Agile coach and Agile consultant?
Agile consultants will work with your organisation at a strategic level, defining a transformation roadmap that can encompass many activities that may include Agile coaching sessions. Where required, these sessions may be undertaken by an Agile consultant as part of their wider programme, or may be delivered by a separate Agile coach.
Agile coaching sessions are typically a mix of training on Agile’s most important principles and techniques, and consultation that helps contextualise these within your particular environment and provide actionable, personalised advice. Your Agile consultant or coach may incorporate both traditional and conversational training methods, alongside practical exercises that provide hands-on experience and generate valuable “light-bulb” moments.
Agile coaching is a valuable tactical tool in your wider Agile consultancy engagement or Agile transformation journey, particularly if your teams are new to Agile project methodologies or you are bringing together disparate teams with different ways of working.
Is Scrum and Agile the same thing?
While Scrum and Agile share many of the same principles and values, they are not quite the same thing.
Agile is an approach to project management based around the concepts of iteration, collaboration and feedback, which can be applied to a wide range of deliverables, industries and business processes.
Scrum is a specific process framework for delivering projects in an Agile way, which can be applied to software development projects or more widely, but remains focused on delivering working products at the end of every sprint of work.
Your Agile transformation or consultancy engagement may draw from a range of project methodologies including Scrum, depending on your specific requirements and goals.
What is Agile coaching?
Agile coaching provides organisations with the skills, techniques and approaches they need to be successful in their adoption of Agile ways of working, which are aimed at increasing transparency, visibility and collaboration as well as introducing regular feedback loops and iterative delivery processes, to improve productivity and drive greater business value.
Agile coaching programmes can incorporate a wide range of activities depending on the specific goals, contexts and existing knowledge levels of an organisation. Typically though these activities focus on guiding participants through current challenges or representative scenarios, to build an understanding of how Agile can be applied and uncover targeted solutions that will form the basis of any future recommendations, roadmaps and strategic plans.
What are the responsibilities of an Agile coach?
To ensure any advice and activities are as relevant as possible to your organisation and team, your Agile coach should first discuss with you any specific use contexts, areas of interest and pain points; using this information to define the direction of the subsequent coaching programme.
Your Agile coach will then take you through a series of coaching activities that can take many different forms, but will typically incorporate a mix of training on Agile’s most important principles and techniques, and consultation that enables these to be contextualised within your particular environment and deliver actionable and personalised advice. These sessions may also combine both traditional and conversational training methods, as well as practical exercises that provide hands-on experience and generate valuable “light-bulb” moments.
Following the completion of the initial coaching sessions your Agile coach may then make recommendations for ongoing training, working with your team to develop a bespoke package of support. These recommendations may also include the installation of embedded consultants to focus on specific projects and goals, and can even extend to training members of your team in Agile coaching to bring key capabilities in-house and support a sustainable programme of continuous improvement.
What are the benefits of working with an Agile coach?
While Agile has been popularised in software development, the principles are relevant and effective across many other industries and departments. Agile coaching enables organisations to understand how these principles can be applied in their specific situation, inviting them to bring their unique requirements and even live projects to the table, and teaching teams not just how to do Agile but to be Agile, by embedding the approach at every level of their process and culture.
More generally, the benefits of Agile methodologies have been proven over many years, and organisations of all sectors and sizes are increasingly turning to Agile ways of working to gain the speed and responsiveness they need to remain competitive. Key benefits cited by organisations that have successfully adopted Agile include faster time-to-market, improved project visibility, better collaboration, and increased responsiveness to change.
