We helped the international payments provider rapidly grow its in-house digital capabilities:
- Developer mentoring improves software quality and cuts time to market
- Agile coaching helps teams work more effectively
- Skills transfer drives productivity and reduced reliance on third parties
The challenge
WorldFirst was undergoing a period of change. The business was grappling with rapid growth, staff changes across its developer teams, and the roll-out of an internal structure based on the famed ‘Spotify Model’ in a bid to drive cross-functional collaboration.
The aim of the new organisational model was to ensure WorldFirst’s digital teams could build what matters most to the business and its users, while giving developers the autonomy to decide the best way to build those products or services.
But there were clear knowledge gaps within the newly-created teams, with long-standing members of the company removed from day-to-day development, and a communication gap between developers and product owners was slowing development time.
To make the model a success, and to drive productivity and innovation, WorldFirst needed to grow its in-house capabilities and establish a foundation of the right processes, practices, and methodologies.
With such a large volume of people coming on-board so quickly, one of my concerns was that team maturity would be heavily diluted and potentially take a long period to recover.
Marc Garner, head of IT development at WorldFirst
What we did
WorldFirst enlisted Inviqa’s help to accelerate the development of its digital teams through an exchange of knowledge, skills, and ideas based on embedding Inviqa’s experienced developers within its own teams.
Our support included the likes of:
- In-house developer mentoring and pair programming to develop throughput, improve software quality, and reduce time to market
- Agile coaching and workshops to help developer teams work and deliver more effectively
- Bespoke BDD training (behaviour-driven development) for creating software with business value
- Code clubs to test ideas and promote a culture of learning
WorldFirst’s digital teams were exposed to alternative perspectives and skillsets, enabling them to grow their own capabilities. With an appetite for experimentation and continuous improvement, the business was able to trial different approaches and Agile frameworks to identify those that enabled teams to be more productive.
Inviqa enabled us to give our people continuous, on-the-job training, with mentorship and guidance to help teams mature – and with the added benefit that Inivqa was writing large amounts of code for us too!
Marc Garner, head of IT development at WorldFirst
The results
With our help, WorldFirst’s developer teams now work more effectively, are well-versed with key technology frameworks, and are accelerating software delivery.
The Inviqa team has imparted valuable knowledge and best practices, contributed to technical builds, and has equipped teams to drive more value from Agile practices.
Changes made with Inviqa to internal processes are already saving time and boosting productivity. Code reviews, for example, have been made more efficient, and the visibly improved collaboration amongst teams and stakeholders is reducing waste, increasing throughput, and ensuring that WorldFirst delivers value and not just features.
Inviqa’s presence has made a clear and very positive impact on our business. I can wholeheartedly recommend Inviqa as a partner, and look forward to working with them going forwards.
Marc Garner, head of IT development at WorldFirst