Agile Implementation and Coaching to UK Joint Biosecurity Centre (Covid19)
The Situation
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC), operating within the Accelerated Capability Environment (ACE), needed to rapidly establish governance, planning and delivery capabilities to support a national response. Teams were geographically dispersed, working remotely and operating within a highly sensitive, fast-moving political environment where timely, evidence-based decisions were critical.
The Task
Provide executive advisory, coaching and transformation leadership to help establish effective planning, governance and delivery. Align the JBC with Test and Trace, define value streams, improve cross-organisational collaboration and enable rapid, coordinated decision-making.
The Action / Approach
Worked with senior leaders to establish a clear transformation approach, aligning strategy, governance and delivery across multiple organisations. Designed and facilitated remote Programme Increment (PI) Planning, enabling teams to prioritise work, manage dependencies and coordinate delivery despite COVID restrictions.
Introduced portfolio planning disciplines, strengthened stakeholder engagement, improved transparency and governance, coached leaders and Product Owners, and embedded collaborative ways of working that accelerated decision-making while reducing delivery risk.
The Result
Successfully delivered the government’s first fully remote Programme Increment Planning event, establishing a coordinated delivery plan covering priorities, dependencies, risks, assumptions, issues and value streams.
The new approach significantly improved collaboration, planning discipline and organisational alignment, enabling faster decision-making and more effective delivery during a national emergency.
The ACE Director commented:
“There is no way we could have achieved this much in such a short space of time. We should be doing all Government programme planning this way.”
Focus In On: Responsible for Digital Business Transformation
New Areas of Value:
Increased credibility, confidence and influence across the business
Creating a culture of involvement, empowerment and connection to the business
Improved business agility and ability to rapidly respond to change and opportunity
Digital transformation that drives, moves and resets the organisation’s vision
Enabling collaboration beyond the boundaries of an enterprise
More satisfied and engaged employees with increased retention and productivity
Effective delivery against financial targets
Direct positive impact on internal and external customer satisfaction
Successful, timely delivery of evidence-based digital transformational outcomes; beyond digitisation
Improvements around:
Lack of availability of the right people at the right time across both business and technology areas
Lack of agreement of transformation governance and stakeholder understanding leading to a fragmented approach
Lack of process and technical integration strategy making the overall solution less efficient
Lack of transformation, change and agility mindset in leadership
Lack of exec sponsorship and ownership
Leaders mandating a change management and implementation approach that’s not appropriate to the organisation
Lack of clarity around existing operating model, internal business ecosystem or cross-functional teams
Unclear and siloed business strategy leading to misaligned goals across the organisation that conflict with transformation
Budget availability affected by external change drivers and uncertain resource estimates
Cynicism, lack of buy-in and resistance to change
Conflict between perception and reality of digital skills, tools, methods and talent required and available
