REFOCUS - PURCHASING TEAM TRIAL AGILE WORKING IN 'PLAY YOUR PART' PILOT

The shift to working in an Agile way is rolling out rapidly across the business with more than 3,500 colleagues now working this way across five pilots.

The shift to working in an Agile way is rolling out rapidly across the business with more than 3,500 colleagues now working this way across five pilots.

One team in purchasing decided to play their part in our transformation through Agile ways of working, by getting involved in a voluntary scrum project called Play Your Part. 

Just as a scrum in rugby resets and restarts a game, the Play Your Part srums initiative allowed team members involved to reset and restart with a new way of working.  

The project provided the opportunity for individuals to volunteer to form a scrum to work on aspects of the Supplier Performance Management Framework. Scrum topics and desired outputs were provided, but it was up to the scrum teams to define how and what they delivered.

The Play Your Part project has provided invaluable knowledge to help more teams transition and gain greater engagement with our transformation through Refocus.

Led by Senior Global Purchasing Manager Marianne Daniels, the first phase of Play Your Part was launched in April 2021 with 85 volunteers and 10 scrums and ran over six weeks with three sprints.

“We could see that working in the new Agile way would be transformational across the business and we wanted to give people a chance to get involved,” she explained.

A pitch Marianne gave for volunteers at an all-hands event resulted in 85 people saying they were interested in getting involved.
 

“We needed self-motivated, enthusiastic people who were willing to go over and above the day job. They needed to want genuine development and be interested in making a difference. But in return they got something back. They received training and experience of the Agile methodology, and they were stretched, learnt and developed new skills and had greater exposure across the business.

“People really enjoyed getting involved and we mixed teams up across Purchasing so everyone got to know more people. It gave them a lift to do something a bit more creative.

“We’ve now done the second round of Play Your Part and had about 60 volunteers involved with that, some of whom took part in round one and some who were new. As with round one, those involved had objectives to meet within six to eight weeks.

“For example, I asked the volunteers to look at the JLR Q which is awarded to suppliers when they’ve achieved a certain status. It was due for review and a refresh so volunteers were asked to speak to stakeholders involved in JLR Q to see what they thought and what it should shift to. They got broad input and experience.

“What I saw was that behaviours changed over the six to eight weeks. At the start those involved were asking for direction. By mid-way through they would come to me for reassurance, but by the end they were empowered to get on with things. It was a mindset change which happened much quicker the second time around.

“I had to adjust as well in my leadership role. It helped though that so many people were involved, I wouldn’t have had the time to tell each of them what they had to do. We had share fairs where people could update on what they were doing and where they were up to and identify new opportunities. This was also an opportunity for me to challenge if anything was drastically wrong.

But basically, the idea was I could say ‘this is what I want you to achieve, but you are empowered to work out how to achieve it’.

“The principles of Agile are now being adopted. People are sharing their progress rather than waiting to share a finished piece of work. There are challenges to working this way, but people are making more connections and are collaborating more effectively. This has given us all a better understanding of Agile in terms of terminology and ways of working. Those involved will look to influence others to work in a similar way as we continue the roll out of Agile across Jaguar Land Rover.”