Our partner Yle receives Lean Award of the Year

Web development management at Yle was steered towards an agile direction years ago. Now the lean culture has spread all over the organization, covering all levels of employees from the C-level to production. This was praised in the justifications of the award.

“Earlier it took a lot of time to prepare propositions and wait for executive decisions regarding implementation. By applying agile principles consistently, we have reached a level where there’s no need for micro management and experts are truly able to focus on their main task,” rejoices Mirette Kangas, who is in charge of Yle’s agile transformation.

How was the awarded model achieved?

Cooperation between Nitor and Yle started at the end of 2013 with drafting the agile vision of Yle. Since then, the focus has been on spreading the agile model throughout the organization.

Nitor’s Senior Lean Consultant Samuli Kiviniemi, who works closely with Yle, praises the smooth cooperation. “A pragmatic approach and speed are common to both Nitor and Yle. Problems are solved quickly and conveniently, starting from those problems that are the easiest to solve.”

Even though the pace has been quick, the cultural change has taken some time.

“Respecting previous ways of working becomes very important, when you are developing an organization as big as Yle. Nobody benefits from a forced change,” Samuli elaborates.

At Yle, the new culture has been spread organically, but in a determined way. Those who raise their hand and show interest in agility are invited to familiarize with teams that already utilize agile methods. Everyone is being trained and encouraged to find the best lean practices for their own work.

At the same time, the agile organizational culture is consistently promoted.

“From the very beginning, I decided that we’ll tell about agile methods only for those who want to know about it. Being self-imposed is important. To our joy requests started to flow in and, along with great results, the culture has spread as if it’s happened spontaneously,” Mirette summarizes.

More information

Since 2013 Nitor has been the primary partner of Yle in developing business processes and leadership agility. In the summer of 2016, Yleisradio selected (more, in Finnish) Nitor as its partner to develop architecture and processes in a frame arrangement of service development.

The Lean Award of the Year by the Finnish Lean association was given at the Lean Management seminar in September 2016 in Messukeskus, Helsinki.