Making work more agile for Pulse247 with expert coaching

“The trainers have been real experts. The comments have been sharp and have given us better tools to develop processes.”

More agility with a training program

Contribyte (now part of Eficode) facilitated a training program for Pulse247, in which they learned the basics of Scrum, among other things, and developed the operation to be even more agile.

Before undergoing training, Pulse247 had a combination of more experienced staff and slightly younger employees in product development who were not yet familiar with agile development methods. Everyone who wanted to work on product development wanted to be on the same track to make dialogue and cooperation easier. The goal was for them to speak the same language and for everyone to be able to take a stand on decisions and process development equally.

Making theory real, using practical examples

A multi-month training program was considered to bring the best benefits, due to the company’s long-term development process.

The program began with ‘Right Features’ training, which focused on customer understanding, requirements management and prioritization, among other things. This was followed up with training days on agile practices and product management, while weekly progress reports took place to monitor the adoption of agile methods and plan the training program’s progress. 

During the coaching, the theory of agile development was brought to life using the company’s own examples. In addition to the theory, a lot of different exercises were done to focus on agile practices and their application in everyday development work. The exercises also mapped out which things are going well and what is worth developing in the future.

Chief Product Officer, Miska Närhi, says “it has been really opening and useful to hear tips and comments from external trainers on the development of operations” and commented that team training was a really well-functioning solution, because the dynamics of the group improved, and they were able to get better at teamwork simultaneously.

Agile capabilities for the entire team

Bringing agile capabilities to the entire team was the number one training priority. In addition to training the entire team, one of the employees received guidance and skills to enable them to act as a Product Owner. They have now been able to take responsibility for this role on a practical level as well. Närhi commented that, as a result, “Now we all have a better starting point for how things work, which helps us work better in teams, take a stand and bring out important issues in retrospectives!”

According to Närhe, the operating model of coaching has also been really functional. The body of the training was kept flexible and was adapted and supplemented according to employees’ emerging needs as the coaching progressed. He believes that this has worked really well for them, commenting that “we have appreciated that the work has been concrete and practical, as well as tailored to our needs.” He added that “The trainers have been real experts. The comments have been sharp and have given us better tools to develop processes.”

Potential found

In the past, part of the team were reluctant to participate in discussions: not saying much, for example, during retrospectives but, thanks to coaching, this threshold has been lowered as different practices and terms have become familiar. In addition, the coaching helped to concretize how product development teams should work. Pulse247 was able to turn this into reality and Närhe says, “This has been well implemented already, and the situation will certainly continue to develop in the future. We have received a lot of good comments and sparring, which has helped us clarify and improve our operations.”

In conclusion, Närhe says, “The best thing about the coaching was to see how the new members of the product development team got excited about the work and realized their own potential. Part of it clearly conveyed how the education aroused us to think about things from a new perspective. It seems that the end result of the coaching is a more motivated and self-directed team!

Contribyte met Pulse247 needs and Närhe says, “I would also recommend coaching to other product development companies and organizations!”