A learning journey - working in the open

A Mutual treasury

Reflecting on the last few years - it has been an absolute privilege to work alongside so many pioneering colleagues at Nationwide Building Society . I want to take this opportunity to share some of the stories and learning - made possible by our ongoing commitment to "working in the open". The below is a compendium of videos and articles that cover journeys through #digitaltransformation and #agiletransformation, with a consistent focus on #culture #value #flow #learning and #leadership.

Content is grouped into themes - reflecting facets of a broader narrative emerging over time. I'm proud of the honesty, the transparency and the bravery of these storytellers. Looking back, the stories show an emergent journey towards aspirational goals that inspired colleagues to give so much.

Culture, Leadership, Ways of Working

Broad content covering Nationwide’s evolving approach to Transformation and Enablement, as well as content on Leadership and Culture – featuring Jen Marsden, Geraldine Maringo, Ellie Taylor, Sam O’Neill, Richard James

As the Nationwide Digital and Agile Transformation chapters evolved over 2018-2022, a strong and consistent thread has been on the criticality of Leadership and Culture:

• Technology is Easy, Culture is Hard (Jen Marsden & Richard James – DOES Europe ‘19)
• Pioneers’ Perspectives (Richard James & Geraldine Maringo – SEACOM ’19)
• Eleven reflections from tackling the cultural elephant (Richard James – SEACOM ’20)
• Practical Magic (Richard James – Sooner Safer Happier 2021)

The Nationwide Ways of Working journey features a strong partnership with Sooner Safer Happier – these videos, articles and book entries from 2020-2022 give a good overview of the evolving approach, progress and learnings:

• Somewhere between Concept and Context lies Confusion (Sam O’Neill & Ellie Taylor – SEACOM ’20)
• Ways of Working – the journey (several – Sooner Safer Happier 2021)
• Ways of Working – the journey continued (several – Sooner Safer Happier 2022)?

In the book Sooner Safer Happier, there are two case studies – covering both the journey to create the WoW Centre of Enablement (Chapter One), and the Agile in Audit evolution (Chapter Three):

• Sooner Safer Happier – Nationwide Case Study for WoW CoE, Nationwide Case Study for Agile in Audit

Op Model, Value Streams, Lean Portfolio Mgmt

Content covering Op Model, Governance, Strategy, Finance and Portfolio Management changes to support agility – featuring Patrick Eltridge, Janet Chapman, Tony Caink, Nic Brown

Two of Nationwide’s ExCo (Chief Operating Officer and Mission Leader) presenting together at DevOps Enterprise Summit on the pivot to value-streams – introduced and referenced subsequently by Gene Kim:

• On a Mission (Patrick Eltridge - DOES Europe ’20)

Videos and articles highlighting the evolution of Change Frameworks, Portfolio Management, Strategy, Finance, and Governance, Risk and Controls:

• Op Model for E2E Value (Tony Caink – SEACOM ’22)
• Trust Part 1: Governance & Bureaucracy – Tony Caink
• Trust Part 2: Capacity Based Funding – Tony Caink
• Project to Product nudges for large organisations – Nic Brown

Value, Flow, Measurement

Content covering Measurement and Experimentation to improve Flow and Value – featuring Nic Brown, Kim Wilson, Pete Lear, Zsolt Berend, Marc Price

The move away from organisational focus on Outputs towards a conversation about Outcomes is covered in this content – including behavioural change, leadership role-modelling and the role of measurement:

• Culture Stole My OKRs (Pete Lear & friends – DOES US ’20)

Nationwide were fortunate to create a strong team of WoW experts – here are several excellent videos and articles on core topics for improving Value and Flow in many contexts:

• There’s No Such Thing as a Committed Outcome – Nic Brown
• Capacity planning in less than five minutes – Nic Brown
• Story Pointless (part 1 of 3) – Nic Brown
• Story Pointless (part 2 of 3) – Nic Brown
• Story Pointless (part 3 of 3) – Nic Brown
• Lessons from a successful Agile adoption outside of IT (Ellie Taylor – DOES Europe ’20)
• Approaches for Enabling Teams – Mark Rendell

The Measurement & Insight Accelerator product team, in partnership with WoW experts, introduced and scaled organisational interest and improvement for Flow, Culture and Value – this is the team’s and customers' story:

• Measure for Learning (Marc Price & Zsolt Berend – DOES US ’21)
• Improving through learning – Zsolt Berend
• ThoughtSpot and Blocked Work – Nic Brown
• ThoughtSpot and the four flow metrics – Nic Brown
• The importance of being blocked – (Nic Brown - Kanban Community Days 2021)

Learning & Community Engagement

Content covering Learning and how to engage, nurture and celebrate Community – featuring Sarah Sambidge, Zsolt Berend, Paul Blackler, Richard James, Andrew Woolford

Story-telling, awards and celebrations of learning formed a key element of the cultural journey for Nationwide – see these articles and videos:

• The Ways of Working Award goes to… (Sarah Sambidge, Zsolt Berend & Paul Blackler – DOES EU ’21)
• WoW2021 – ‘Ways of Working’ or ‘What a Week’ – Richard James
• Learning at Work (every) Week – Richard James
• The book club: Enabling conversation across organisation boundaries – Andrew Woolford?

DevOps, Data, Tech, Controls

Content covering tech-enabled business transformation, DevOps, Lean Controls – featuring Simone Steel, Leanne Bridges, Matt McKee, Mark Rendell and Rich James

This video talks through Nationwide’s approach to modernising risk management and controls to enable improved Flow – seeking both increased speed and safety.

• Intelligent Control – Enabling Safety at Speed (Mark Rendell & Leanne Bridges – DOES Europe ’21)

Nationwide’s Chief Data & Analytics Officer talks through the interdependent journey of Agile, Digital and Data Transformation – leading from the front and inspiring positive change across the C-suite and through the organisation

• Data-Fuelled Agility (Simone Steel – SEACOM ’22)
• From DevOps to DataOps (Simone Steel - DOES Europe ’22)

Organisational agility requires both continuous attention to technical excellence - modern tech leadership is a hallmark of high-performing organisations.?These videos and articles show the best of our innovators progress on DevOps, SRE and sociotechnical design.

• Three ways to implement DevOps - Matt McKee
• Finding your path with SRE – Mark Rendell
• Enterprise on the Bleeding Edge (Rich James – DOES Europe ’22)