Univé, a large Dutch cooperative insurer with over 1.8 million members, recognised the need to shift towards a more agile approach to align its operations with strategic goals and deliver value more effectively. Starting from an initial Scrum adoption in 2018, Univé embarked on a full-scale Agile transformation. As part of this journey, Univé partnered with Valiantys to implement Jira Align, focusing specifically on enhancing portfolio management capabilities. This collaboration provided Univé with a comprehensive view of its portfolio, enabling a more transparent and collaborative environment across teams.
Challenges
Univé encountered several key challenges in its Agile journey:
- Strategic alignment across complex projects: As a large organisation managing extensive initiatives that impacted various departments, effectively aligning execution at the portfolio level with its strategic goals is an important objective for Univé. Too often, large-scale projects stalled, delaying outcomes and diminishing the value of investments.
- Limited visibility into portfolio performance and dependencies: Univé had limited visibility into overall portfolio performance and cross-team dependencies. Dependencieswere often unclear or undocumented, leading to resource misallocation and inconsistent project outcomes, which hindered overall predictability.
- Balancing autonomy with uniformity: Univé’s culture of team autonomy led to inconsistencies across Agile practices, especially in tools like Jira, making it challenging to standardise processes and track progress uniformly while respecting team independence.
- Time investment in new tools: Implementing an Enterprise Agile Planning solution required substantial time to build data history and integrate with existing systems.
- Ensuring ongoing project continuity and keeping teams engaged through the transition was critical.
Solution Offered by Valiantys
- Valiantys enabled Univé to use Jira Align effectively for Program Increment (PI) planning within four months of their engagement.
- Valiantys supported the onboarding process for Univé’s primary release trains, achieving full onboarding within a year.
- Valiantys provided hands-on configuration support not only for Jira Align but also for Jira and Azure DevOps, tailoring these tools to Univé’s requirements for better integration and workflow management.
- Valiantys conducted workshops to help Univé set up Jira Align to address their immediate needs, which helped Univé structure the tool in a way that supported their Agile transformation goals.
- Valiantys collaborated with Univé to enhance their strategic portfolio management practices and effectively integrate them into Jira Align.
Progress and Value Realised So Far
The transformation with Valiantys brought about meaningful improvements:
- Enhanced strategic execution: Jira Align enabled Univé to track and align initiatives with strategic objectives, ensuring investments generated maximum value.
- Improved transparency and dependency management: Clear dependency documentation and formalisation across teams allowed for streamlined planning and better predictability.
- Balanced autonomy and standardisation: Univé achieved a balance between team autonomy and portfolio-level consistency, facilitating efficient cross-functional collaboration.
- Data-driven decisions: With a centralised view and data insights, Univé’s leadership could make informed, transparent prioritisation decisions, optimising resource allocation and outcomes.
Univé’s Agile transformation, supported by Valiantys and Atlassian tools, has led to a robust framework for strategic alignment, improved project visibility, and enhanced organisational agility, driving sustainable business impact.