AGILE BEYOND SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Eduardo Nofuentes
The Agile Contact Centre
AGILE BEYOND SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
T H E A G I L E T R A N S F O R M AT I O N O F A C O N TA C T C E N T R E
Sue Visic
Thoughtworks
: @edumelbourne www.theagilecontactcentre.com.au

Unlimited IVR
options
Endless Internal
transfers
Long waiting
periods
WE ALL HAVE SUFFERED FROM TRADITIONAL
CONTACT CENTRES

Low Customer
Satisfaction
Isolated from
Organisation
Low Employee
Engagement
USUALLY THOSE CONTACT CENTRES SUFFER
FROM…

Team not meeting
basic service levels
Complaining about
change
Disengaged Team
WHAT WE FOUND AT REA…

Agile alone will not solve all the problems
Systems Thinking
Approach
Agile Mindset
& Practices
Lean Principles
THE FOUR STRATEGIES WE USED

• Break into groups of 3-5 people
• Discuss with your group the situation and what would you do
• Think about the theories behind your proposed solutions
• What is the fourth “strategy” we applied?
• After that, each group will share one or two ideas with the
other groups
NOW IS YOUR TURN…

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED…

Systems Thinking
Approach
STRATEGY ONE – A SYSTEMS THINKING APPROACH

The Vanguard Guide to Transforming Contact Centres
A VANGUARD VIEW OF CONTACT CENTRES

Is your customer demand Value Demand – What the call centre exists to do for
customers, or Failure Demand – Demand caused by a failure within the organisation?
Are customers
contacting us
because we failed
to do something
right?
UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER DEMAND &
PREDICTABILITY

Some failure is created by the contact centre, some by other parts of the
organisation, none is created by the customer.
Understanding
the system is the
prerequisite to
improving the
system
UNDERSTANDING WHY IT WENT WRONG

Embed a culture of continuous improvement based on eliminating failure
demand.
Use
empirical data
to remove
waste and
affect change
ELIMINATING THE WRONGNESS

The leader nurtures an environment that enables the people in the team make
decisions from a customers perspective.
Let the people
who do the work
take control of
the work
DESIGN A HUMAN SYSTEM THAT WORKS

Agile Mindset
& Practices
STRATEGY TWO – AGILE MINDSET & PRACTICES

“At the end of the day, stuff gets done when people care to do it. I know of no
plan, method, incantation that changes that equation.” H. Owen
A shared purpose
drives collaboration
AGILE PRACTICES: START WITH THE PURPOSE

Taking people off the phones to attend stand ups was a short term risk that we
took for the long term success of the team.
Encourage face to
face communication
and collaboration
AGILE PRACTICES: DAILY STAND UPS

The team worked on fortnightly sprint cycles on projects chosen every 90 days.
Promote
transparency and
accountability by
having all projects on
the wall
AGILE PRACTICES: SPRINT WALL

We used to keep endless spreadsheets and internal documents with
information that now is visible and easily accessible to everyone.
Try to find ways
to visualise the work
and data that is
important to the
team
AGILE PRACTICES: VISUALISATION OF WORK

Using retrospectives we uncovered the main problems for our customers and
staff and it helped us with the prioritisation of work
Listen to the
people that do the
work. They know
your customers’
problems and
usually the answers
AGILE PRACTICES: RETROSPRECTIVES
: @edumelbourne www.theagilecontactcentre.com.auwww.theagilecontactcentre.com.au

Lean Principles
STRATEGY THREE – LEAN PRINCIPLES

We launched a
new channel without
having to go through
our internal IT
department and
spending $300 in
licences.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Thomas
Edison
LEAN PRINCIPLES: RAPID EXPERIMENTATION

Remove IVR’s
when they don’t add
value to customers
Understanding customer demand and predictability will show that you don’t
need specialised teams
LEAN PRINCIPLES: REMOVE BARRIERS FOR
CUSTOMERS

Measure what
matters to
customers and let
the team set their
own goals and
targets
“If you give a manager a numerical target, he'll make it even if he has to
destroy the company in the process." - Deming
LEAN PRINCIPLES: REMOVE METRICS THAT DON’T
MATTER

Brave
Leadership
Brave Leadership
THE FOURTH STRATEGY – BRAVE LEADERSHIP

Brave Leaders
believe everyone is
already doing their
best and are willing
to do things that are
unexpected or
against the norm
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit”
Henry Truman
BRAVE LEADERSHIP: THE SERVANT MINDSET

Brave Leaders
cultivate a culture of
trust and develop
other leaders
Adopt and institute leadership aimed at helping people to do a better job
BRAVE LEADERSHIP: THE COACH MINDSET

Brave leaders
take imperfect
action and are not
afraid of admitting
they don’t know the
answer.
“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't
always comfortable, but they're never weakness.” Brene Brown
BRAVE LEADERSHIP: THE VULNERABILITY MINDSET

Improved customer
satisfaction - 8.9
Customer led -
18% failure
demand
Engaged
team - 88%
THE RESULTS

▫Does your team or company understand your customers’ demand?
▫What percentage of failure and value demand do you have in your organisation?
▫ Do you know the cost to your organisation of all of the failure demand?
▫Is your system designed from an inside-out view or from a customer view?
▫How can you apply Agile Practices and Lean Principles to your non software
development teams?
▫How brave are you as a leader? How brave is the leader in your team /
organisation?
ASK YOURSELF…

Eduardo Nofuentes
The Agile Contact Centre
www.theagilecontactcentre.com.au
eduardo@theagilecontactcentre.com.au
+61407 450 640
Sue Visic
Thoughtworks
www.thoughtworks.com
svisic@thoughtworks.com
+61419 194 423
THANK YOU

AGILE BEYOND SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

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