AGILE FOR NEW TEAMS

agile for globally distributed teams

Critical thinking, great communication, true collaboration, creativity, autonomy… All the things that they say can’t be done offshore. We say they can.

Our programmes are designed to bring out the creativity and passion in your offshore delivery teams. Our award-nominated, market-first approach addresses the structural foundations, then explores the connections between culture and behaviour that lead to agile excellence.

The workplace cultures that we co-create are based on that most elusive, yet crucial, of all foundations; trust. Hard and time-consuming to build, yet easy and quick to destroy. We establish then maintain a workplace culture based on trust. This provides a solid foundation on which to build outstanding results that meet, and typically exceed, expectations.

Enabling Agile behaviours offshore

To really feel the benefits of agile, it’s important to get the behaviours right. Offshore teams that can contribute, challenge, come up with suggestions and feel connected to their colleagues overseas, perform better.

Delivery teams that communicate freely with their colleagues overseas, whether updates are good or bad, are also better at finding creative solutions. Transparency, critical thinking and a solutions-oriented mindset; these are the kind of behaviours we encourage.

When great connections are made between onshore and offshore colleagues, communication flows freely and this leads to greater time efficiency, true customer-centricity, increased quality and cost savings. That’s why we put cross-cultural understanding and behavioural alignment at the heart of our methodology for building distributed teams that can excel.

Together Programmes
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GATEWAY

Award-nominated approach to building high performing offshore agile delivery teams

The ‘Gateway’ programme starts with a 3-month phase made up of needs analysis, 2 weeks of intensive on-site training, followed by a support phase to launch high-performance distributed teams. During this time, teams are fully integrated into your organisation culturally, behaviourally and operationally. The programme can be run with new or established distributed teams.

Retrospectives provide additional support throughout the first year of operation. If required, Together can set up hand-picked offshore teams in India as part of our team extension model in Indian IT hubs with various partner organisations. Alternatively, we can work with your existing IT supplier to set up their new teams using Together’s award-nominated methodology.

kickoff

KICK-OFF

Getting new, short-term distributed team projects off to the best possible start

The ‘Kick-Off’ programme is a shorter version of Gateway, designed to get new distributed teams, typically working on shorter projects, aligned and off to a great start. We carry out a targeted needs analysis prior to a ½ day workshop which brings all stakeholders together, followed by a support period.

The programme is designed to address misunderstandings and communication issues that can typically lead to project failure. We look out for ‘small issues’ as they arise, to stop them from becoming bigger ones.

We also make sure that there’s clarity around deliverables and keep everyone on track for success.

recruitment

RECRUITMENT SUPPORT

Finding, attracting and retaining top talent to build great offshore teams

Competition for the best talent, particularly in offshore IT, is increasingly fierce. To help you attract the best offshore talent, we have a range of services to support your recruitment needs.

We can support your existing offshore supplier with the right messaging and streamlining of the recruitment process. We can also recruit teams directly with our offshore partners, designing and delivering an engaging recruitment campaign from scratch to reach the right candidates and get them excited about the opportunity.

We understand the importance of marketing the role correctly and finding innovative ways to reach the target audience with the right message.

Case Study

Agile teams in outsourcing

Award-nominated, industry-first – a new approach to high performing distributed teams

The Client
  • 26 year old, privately owned company with £50m+ annual turnover
  • Specialising in the delivery of intelligent technology and services to the UK care sector
The Challenge
  • Opportunity to develop a new product with UK clients required rapid scale-up
  • Challenges hiring skilled resources in the UK lead to a UK-India Distributed Team solution
  • The client’s concerns mainly focused on how an Indian team would adapt to their pure Agile ethos
  • Some negative experiences of outsourcing by existing management team
The Results

AGILE PERFORMANCE: All agile metrics, including team velocity, burn-down rates, time-to-market and customer satisfaction, “well in excess of company averages.”
TEAM PERFORMANCE: Offshore teams described as the “highest performing scrum teams in the business” by client Head of Applications
BEHAVIOURAL SCORECARD: Average team member score = 88%
INDUSTRY RECOGNITION: 2 nominations at the National Outsourcing Association awards 2015.
ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE: demonstrating heightened levels of international connectivity and trust.

testimonial author
“The biggest thing for me is that I actually trust the team to deliver, and they feel empowered to look at innovative ways of delivering.”
Fiona H.
Project Manager - UK Client
testimonial author
“Would I recommend this for other companies? Absolutely yes. True agile outsourcing is the way the industry has to go and I’ve no doubt will do.”
Steve T
Head of Applications, UK client
testimonial author
“If the rest of the industry was to adopt this innovative approach to offshoring, I think they would have much more longevity from their teams, a much better and more trusting relationship with their offshore partners and a happier workforce all round!”
Fiona H
Project Manager, UK client
testimonial author
“I’ve worked I both cultures and I see the difference. I see all of my colleagues have a positive attitude and take responsibility and accountability for their work and they’re so happy!”
Rajesh O.
Test Engineer, Indian IT Services Provider