By bringing experienced, system-level thinking and our toolbox of models, frameworks and concepts to your table, we aim to shine a light on your situation and context in ways that you may not have considered. Ways that help you see things through different lenses and which reveal the new paths to value that are worth exploring.

We use that toolbox in our four solutions, each of which addresses a different dimension of ‘transformation’ – continuous modernisation of technology, Scaling Lean-Agile, improving practices and shifting away from projects to 'product'.

Technology

We’re always trying to align technology to business strategy and focus on improving business outcomes. This means we take the widest possible view of the organisation’s technology landscape, not a narrow, project-based view.

We thrive in the uncertainty and ambiguity inherent in technology change and avoid band-aid approaches that solve technical problems at the surface. Our aim is to sort out the underlying factors that cause those problems. We call them ‘Complex Technology Constraints’.

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We thrive in the uncertainty and ambiguity inherent in technology change and avoid band-aid approaches that solve technical problems at the surface.

This first requires an understanding of the business strategy and then the skills to resolve technical debt, unpeel layer after layer of architecture, work through poorly-evolved systems and peer through accidental complexity to find value. It’s hard stuff, but the reward is incredible when you help build a contemporary system that truly unleashes your product team to experience the frictionless delivery of value. Read more about Transitioning Technology.

Talent

To succeed in today’s knowledge economy, organisations need to ‘edit their DNA’ by helping people adopt Lean-Agile principles and new ways of working. This not only creates a culture focused on the delivery of value, but ensures the organisation achieves a higher level of business agility.

We use the world’s leading framework – SAFe® – to do this. As New Zealand’s leading SAFe® practice, we’ve led many ‘Agile transformations’ for New Zealand organisations and have deep experience of how SAFe® works in a New Zealand context. We’ve trained hundreds of SAFe® practitioners and we have the only two qualified SAFe® Program Consultant Trainers (SPCT) in the country.

Practices

Through our partnership with Callaghan Innovation, we’ve worked with over 150 New Zealand SaaS businesses studying the maturity of their software practices and helping them adopt better ones through our unique Improvement Model.

From this work, we’ve built NZ’s most comprehensive set of software delivery performance benchmarks. These give businesses a clear understanding of their existing performance and the gap they need to close to compete with the best. The good news is that when those businesses transition to better practices, their performance measures really do improve. Our model works.

From Project to Product

Dr Mik Kersten published his seminal book on this topic in 2018 and we are admirers. We’ve long been helping businesses get away from a ‘project-based’ view of delivery. What matters more than the ‘delivery of a project’ is the value you are delivering for customers. But what happens when you can’t see it or what you are measuring makes no sense?

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The good news is that when those businesses transition to better practices, their performance measures really do improve. Our model works.

Reorganising around Value Streams which are aligned to business outcomes is the first step in making it visible. The next is being able to measure it in terms of flow. Dr Mik Kersten’s Flow Framework® and his tools business Tasktop help achieve precisely that. We’re proud to be New Zealand partners of Tasktop and are hugely excited about the benefits it can bring to enterprises.

CIOs should be especially interested as the shift from project to product underpins the shift in roles of IT/IS away from ‘operations’ and towards the business enabler and value-creator role they have longed for.

Compound value creation through transition

Want transformation? Think transition! In every engagement across each of these four dimensions, we take a ‘step-by-step, transitionary approach that focuses on finding the fastest path to customer value. Iterative change undertaken through the lens of value helps organisations avoid the anti-patterns typically seen in big transformation initiatives.

In transition, there is no destination. What you learn with each step is folded into the next. What emerges with each step points to what’s possible with the next. Over time, there is a fusion of systems, thinking, practice and ideas – the four dimensions – that compounds the creation of value. This is what improving an organisation’s ability really achieves.

We call it ‘The Pursuit of Relevance’. If it’s a path you want to travel, we’d love to help you find it. And be your guide in travelling it.