Lean & Agile have a shared orientation towards customer centricity, respect for people, and continuous improvement. When applied with the right intention to the appropriate context, both domains complement each other exceptionally well in solving complex business problems effectively and sustainably. Aginic and Nik Ilich from Fire & Flint collaborated in driving a principles-first approach to iteratively designing and implementing a transformative future state service onboarding journey for clients of Cerebral Palsy Alliance (CPA). Through a hybrid of lean & agile thinking, the team worked closely with key representatives of CPA, sharing the driver’s seat, to pragmatically deconstruct and deliver a vision for the future with strong agile-delivery foundations underpinning its execution.

1. Lightning Talk
Changing the Way We Change:
Leveraging a combination of Lean, Design, and Scrum
to facilitate a large scale process transformation

2. Introducing Us
Nik Ilich Rowan Walsh

3. The Journey Today
Introduce the
background
and context
Explore the
problem space
Breakdown
our approach
Q&A
Outcomes and
learnings

4. Background and Context

5. Cerebral Palsy Alliance (CPA)
Our Client
Cerebral Palsy Alliance provides family-centred therapies, life skills
programs, equipment and support for people and their families living
with cerebral palsy and other neurological and physical disabilities.
Vision
An inclusive society for people with cerebral palsy and other
neurological disabilities and their families
Purpose
To have a positive impact on the lives of people with cerebral palsy
2500 talented staff
supporting more
than 6000 clients
across 100+ sites in
NSW and ACT

6. The Opportunity
CPA wanted to simplify and streamline the service access journey (i.e. onboarding) for
new and existing CPA customers, to benefit both its clients and CPA staff by making their
lives easier, and better utilising their available skill-sets.
We (the project team) were given the challenge of rethinking and redesigning the
end-to-end Service Access Experience for CPA, including consideration of:
❖ Process & workflows
❖ Roles & Responsibilities
❖ Organisational Structure
❖ Technology / systems
❖ Reporting / analysis
We were seeking to transform the entire system, not just isolated component parts.

7. The Problem Space

8. Key Problems & Drivers
@ CPA Customer Level
Confusion over services available
Long wait times / delays
High onboarding effort
Confusion about onboarding process
Service Team structure, roles and
capabilities
The onboarding process design
Customer information availability and
accessibility
Problems Drivers
Note: This is a heavily summarised and incomplete summary
!

9. Approach

10. Hybrid Delivery Approach
Adaptive Strategy
Lean
Agile
Design
➔ Leverage the rigour of an analytical and
structured process improvement
methodology.
➔ Emphasise an iterative, continuous, and
collaborative approach to designing and
realising a desired end state through
excellent staff and customer engagement,
owned by CPA.
➔ Deliver engaging visuals and tangible
prototypes to improve the quality and
volume of user feedback and improve CPA
alignment to a possible end state.
Adaptive
Strategy
Development
Dynamic
Transparent
Robust
Engaging Fast
Sustainable
Strong and Consistent Foundations
Respect for people Continuous Improvement Customer First

11. Using Scrum
❖ Treating it as a delivery using Scrum; sprints with ceremonies (DoR, DoD,
planning, weekly ‘stand-up’, showcase and then rapid pivot where necessary)
❖ Collaboration ‘at every turn’ promoted a one-team approach
❖ Tangible value delivered every sprint (pivoting)
❖ Deliverables, and how they differentiate from the standard ‘200 page
document’:
➢ Live Backlog
➢ Future State User Journey
➢ Prototype Service Access portal using user-centric design principles

12. High-level Plan and Outcomes
Strategic Advice
(Future State)
Implementation Plan
(backlog of prioritised
epics)
+
Design:
Future State Design
Scenarios Development
and Planning
Sprint 2
Discovery:
Current State Analysis
Data Analysis
Problem Prioritisation
Hypothesis Generation
Sprint 1
Delivery + Wrap-up:
Future State Assessment
Strategic
recommendations +
implementation planning
Sprint 4
Delivery:
Live scenario testing with
internal (CPA) and
external (Clients) parties
Future State refinement
Sprint 3

13. Hybrid Delivery Approach
Adaptive Strategy
Extended
Client Team
Program Team: A
Program Team: B
Program Team: C
Program Team: ...
Finance
IT
Us (Aginic & F&F)
Marketing & Comms
Core Team
Core
PO
Customer
Representation from key stakeholder
groups directly impacted (within scope)
A core team comprised all key internal stakeholders
impacted by changes to the service access process
are involved in collaboratively designing and testing
a shared future state through frontline staff and
customer engagement
The core team will remain as champions and key
SMEs throughout the delivery phase
An objective, well regarded and empowered product
owner with great vision for the future of service
access at CPA was selected to:
- Craft and own the vision for this project,
- Support and enable the delivery team, and
- Engage and involve the critical SMEs within
the extended team across CPA during the
design and delivery phase (i.e. bridge the
core and extended teams)
SMEs

14. Outcomes & Learnings

15. End to End Project Snapshot
CPA Vision
Customer
Outcomes
Future State
Design (Figma)
Problem Solving
(Enablement)
Defining our vision
for Service Access
Understanding what
is valuable to our
clients
Defining a future
state to deliver that
value + digital
prototype
Solving the problems
required to achieve
the future state
Process
Technology
Structure & Roles
Governance
Link solutions to the
problems that must be
solved to realise the future
state design
Connect solutions to the
customer outcomes they are
helping to realise
For each enabler theme, define:
1. Scope
2. Size
3. Customer Value
4. Business Value
5. Dependencies
6. Risks
7. Linked problems & outcomes
First cut of delivery sequence
(to be continuously reviewed
and revised as req.)
Sprints 1-3 Sprint 4
Timeline
Discovery, Design & Delivery Delivery (Implementation) Planning

16. Learnings and takeaways
❖ Think outside the box. Scrum is adaptable and can be used for any and all types of
delivery (especially the principles)
❖ Complex ‘non-standard’ engagements can (and should) be broken down into smaller
increments of value delivery
❖ Whilst we had a high-level roadmap for the project, using Scrum allowed us to pivot
multiple times during the engagement because:
➢ We prioritised delivering the ‘highest value at any given time’ over sticking to our
plan
➢ We welcomed change where it made sense and it worked
➢ We cared less about having the right answer and more about finding the best
answer

17. Learnings and takeaways
❖ During Covid times implementation was delayed by 6-12 months, but our deliverables
enabled a later transition to implementation
➢ Digital prototype as a blueprint for the future state Service Access Journey was
great for understanding and buy-in (engagement)
➢ A prioritised backlog of epics for implementation to feed directly into a CPA
delivery Team
❖ Ongoing customer validation (design thinking, user-centric) builds confidence in end
solution
❖ Involving the client in the end to end process as part of the core team is invaluable, even
if things don’t work out as expected

18. Q&A

19. End of Session
Get in touch!
nik@fireandflint.com
rowan@aginic.com