Understanding the past to map out the future

Software development is ever evolving, and Tracerco has a skilled in-house team that are always open to adopting the latest practices. To help them achieve this, our consultants used a collaborative workshop approach to guide them towards tailored improvements for their unique software development needs.

What did they need?

The Tracerco team has enormous domain knowledge of their business and unique software development challenges, but with huge operational demands and a lack of time to research new practices. They engaged with us as a collaborative facilitator to break through that barrier. Our first task was to hold a workshop to fully get to know each other and understand the challenges faced.

How did we help?

When it comes to their business processes, the Tracerco team are the experts. So the emphasis of the workshop was to enable them to identify the challenges themselves, before we then brought in the toolkit to help solve them.

Through a technical lens, our consultants facilitated Tracerco matching new practices with the challenges they had identified, with a focus on what makes a tangible difference to operations.

We focused on more than just the technical. Collaboratively were able to go as far as identifying cultural improvements, such as how they approach internal knowledge-sharing and upskilling.

What it enabled them to do

With the perfect blend of Tracerco’s knowledge and our expertise they were able to accelerate their improvement process, and begin a tailored roadmap for unlocking extra team performance.

The workshop resulted in tangible actions that the Tracerco software developers could own and progress. But this isn’t the end. Improvement is a continual process, so we ensure we’re available as trusted support. Our offering includes revisiting the team every quarter to check progress, make recommendations, and identify what the next improvements might entail.

What the client said

"My software development team loved this workshop. Being able to pause, stop and reflect is really useful, especially in a comfortable environment so they can talk and explore new ideas. It gave them the time and space to think about what they could be doing differently, and Waterstons' consultants really steered them towards what would add the most value.

"Even though I have regular one-to-one meetings with my development team, Waterstons sparked them to create new efficiency ideas that they'd never mentioned before.

"The workshop also produced tangible actions, and because the team were instrumental in creating the improvement ideas, they also wanted to adopt the actions. For me as the development manager, I can then build those actions into formalised personal objectives, forming a thread from people right through to department strategy.

"I'm looking forward to our next workshop and iterating our efficiency up again to the next level."

Andy Phillips, Digital Solutions Manager at Tracerco

Software development isn’t simply about building software: it’s about understanding the team behind it. By approaching teams with a technical and cultural lens, we’re able to understand the ‘why’ behind much of the ‘what’.

Does your software development team need time to step back and take stock? Want to understand the next steps in your journey? Need some targeted technical advice and ah-hoc support? We’re with you.

Get in touch with our team today at 0345 094 0945 or email info@waterstons.com