Operating system transformation

Challenge

When I joined Hex, they had identified an opportunity with the skills and clients that they had to move more into the product space. Traditionally they had been a digital agency providing creative, brand and website development services to their clients.

Spurred on by a couple of successful projects delivering products for clients they sought to transform the business and pursue more product development work with startups that naturally morphed into business building given the types of people and companies we worked with and what we could offer them.

The challenge here was how to transform the inner workings of Hex to support this work and ensure it could scale with the ambitions of the company.

My role

I started by taking the directors through a review of their business, assessing each aspect across a set of lenses that provided a holistic and exhaustive approach to change. We started on with the why, which focused on the vision and strategy. Making sure that we had clarity and alignment.

Starting with understand the market, our competitors and potential customer groups assessed through a variety of frameworks including the Hedgehog concept from Good to Great, creating a flywheel for the companies business model and set of core principles that would form the foundations for everything that we did from then on.

Once I had established a vision and strategy and had alignment and clarity across the organisation we set about looking at the people, process and technology changes required to enable that vision.

How do you eat an elephant? Bite by bite.

Working methodically lens by lens starting with people because it has the biggest impact on the business, then moving onto process and finally technology.

Outcomes

A comprehensive analysis of the market, competitors, potential customers and company, documenting the current state of people, process and technology and a path for change to a future state that would satisfy the vision and strategy.

• I set up a ran a regular Friday bulletin and Monday morning call

• A set of OKRs used to drive a roadmap of change

• A new delivery framework based on the Zendesk Triple Diamond

• Template and process for responding to briefs

• Implemented the RICE prioritisation framework

• Updated onboarding process to welcome in new recruits as we scale

• A review of the performance management process

• Consultation on our bespoke quality measures framework

• Skills and capabilities assessment for all employees which could be used to inform training and development

• A learning hub for internal sessions to share knowledge and expertise across the organisation

• Agile training sessions for all employees that provided a common and consistent understanding of Agile

• Completed a Notion IA overhaul starting with mapping out the current IA and hosting workshops to get consensus across the organisation of how people used the tool and organised their workspaces

• General consulting across a variety of topics such as workshop facilitation, giving and receiving feedback and mini bios for use in proposals

Testimonial

"Peter is a skilled consultant and product owner who has made significant contributions to Hex. Throughout his tenure, he consistently demonstrated strengths in introducing best practice tools and frameworks and fostering open feedback and collaboration among team members. He handled a dual role on client and internal work effectively, adding value to both positions. His proactive approach to training and advocacy for agile practices has influenced positive change within Hex. His contributions to our Company Roadmap also demonstrate ambition and vision. His dedication will make him a valuable candidate for any future opportunities." ~ Stefan Ferguson, Managing Director at Hex Digital.