JCURV Agile Olympic Winners!

Six months on from Tokyo’s Olympic opening ceremony, we asked our JCURV Olympic winners Mencap, Miralis and Oakbrook, how Business Agility is transforming their organisations.

Mencap’s Agile Social Care Achievements:

Mencap was awarded the JCURV Agile Olympics award for Weightlifting, by demonstrating value creation during COVID. A reduction in mental-health services during COVID was a huge challenge for many adults with learning difficulties.

Along with other members of the Care and Support Alliance, Mencap has run various campaigns, resulting in additional government funding and plans for reform.

To achieve rapid results, Mencap formed a dedicated Agile Social Care Group comprising of specialists in campaigns, policy, research and media. The team created a 90- and 30-day outcome-based roadmap, using agile techniques to drive success. First-time scrum master Michelle Bleau was excited to have delivered this outstanding goal and said:

I feel like I am making a real difference, we’re now setting up six new agile working teams to tackle some of the other great causes that Mencap actively support.

Miralis innovation won gold in the JCURV 100M sprint category

Miralis is powering the move to electric vehicles with Fuuse, a back-office system that caters for charging station challenges and opportunities. Two years ago, the company had 5 employees and a dream. Today, it has grown to five times that number and their successful Fuuse product has been developed, launched and is now experiencing exponential growth.  

Dan Lucy-Lloyd, Product Director for Fuuse, explains the key factors to the company’s ongoing success:

Customer focus is essential. Building tools with the charging station installer in mind has made Miralis an ideal partner. Agile methods are essential for maintaining the capability to rapidly adapt to changing market demand. 

For an ambitious scaleup like Miralis, value-focus and intensive prioritisation is vital. It’s not always the new shiny feature that brings the most value, keeping the service running efficiently is also crucial to success.

Miralis have nominated Jamie’s Farm as a charity partner to highlight the incredible work they do helping vulnerable young people across the country.

Oakbrook’s winning cultural High Jump!

Oakbrook won the JCURV Agile Olympics High jump award in recognition of their cultural change during COVID. When the pandemic struck, they already had tools to support remote working, yet replicating existing ways-of-working in a remote context wasn’t going to work.

Oakbrook’s Chief Technology Officer Matt Whetton explains:

People were put at the centre of their redesign, workforce needs were established, with the risk of digital burnout being taken very seriously. Activities were constructed to look at how to keep people stay engaged including chat roulette, Slack Bingo, the energising Road to Tokyo challenge and a highly successful Innovate 28 virtual hackathon.

This all led to the creation of the Cultural Hub, a purpose-built hybrid work and collaboration centre, designed to meet the needs of the Oakbrook team. The Cultural Hub is both a workplace and a human engineering research centre. How agile is that!

COVID provided the stimulus to address the immediate problems while designing a working environment that is better than ever. The journey continues and the solution continues to evolve.