Kela used agile methods to get free from heavy processes and working methods

In brief

Customer

Kela

Challenge Cumbersome processes and lack of inter-project visibility made work rigid and a bad fit for an environment that was becoming more agile.

Results Kela managed to make its operations more agile and break down projects in a new way to increase transparency. Facilitated prioritisation increased clarity.

Benefits Thanks to the newly adopted internal model, implementing changes has become much easier. The prioritisation of work makes it easier to focus on the essential, and transparency between projects has increased the transparency of the overall picture.

For Kela, the old methods just became too heavy and cumbersome. There was a lack of visibility between different projects and the implementation of changes required long processes. The solution was an enormously successful pilot project aimed at making the whole organisation more agile, introducing transparency and clarity to working.

Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, is a government agency that provides basic economic security for Finnish residents throughout their lives. The employer of more than 7,500 professionals, Kela provides services for everyone covered by the social security system. Making a large organisation more agile is a gradual process without any pressure to immediately change everything.

At Kela, the process began with planting the seeds: introducing an agile way of working by means of staff training, workshops and familiarising everyone with the relevant concepts. Down-to-earth cooperation gave rise to obvious benefits in terms of the daily operations: transparency increased, it became easier to prioritise work, and resources were freed up from low-priority tasks.

Photos: Kela

Baby browsing a book from Kela maternity package

The pilot project yielded several benefits that made working more agile

Together with Nitor, Kela managed to gain numerous benefits from the pilot project. Breaking down tasks from the value perspective increased transparency and facilitated prioritisation, which in turn led to a change in attitude. Kela observed that it’s not necessary to do everything; it is actually more profitable to identify the things that can be left undone and simply focus on the essentials.

Individual employees discovered new ways of taking things forward within the organisation, enabling comprehensive changes. What’s more, the insights gained in joint team meetings were put into practice in a more agile way.

Working together, Kela’s employees managed to lay the foundation for a brand new way of working in slightly over six months. At the same time, some basic things were changed in a concrete way to gain a better understanding of why measures were taken to increase agility. Following the cooperation, Luotsitiimi (the Pilot Team) was put together, consisting of Kela’s own employees. The team is able to promote change within the organisation on its own, making sure that the changes are implemented at a pace that perfectly suits the customer.

Man in work clothes leaning to a stairwell

From long processes towards a more agile and transparent way of working

With a more agile operating environment, it became clear that the old methods no longer worked as well as they should. It was hard to make changes and difficult to see how different projects were progressing. First and foremost, the rewards were slow to be felt because the processes lasted for a long time before any palpable positive changes became evident.

Kela made the decision to familiarise its organisation with agile practices through pilot projects. The objective of the cooperation was to introduce teams to the concepts of an agile way of working; break the work down into smaller, easily manageable packages; and increase transparency on how work was progressing. Kela’s own people in charge also received training on how to implement the change on a daily basis.

Results through concrete change

Nitor started to coach Kela’s pilot teams. The aim was to plant seeds of a comprehensive change and introduce the concepts of agile methods. An essential part of the initiative was to support the customer in forming a clear idea of the direction in which things should be taken in the future.

A major, concrete change took place in the way work is broken down. Projects were dissected from the value aspect to bring increased transparency to work progress. This was also highly rewarding for the employees as results became tangible faster than before. In addition, transparency made it easier to prioritise tasks.

Teams received training in agile methods at workshops, for example. This enabled learning by doing and putting the new methods into practice. Kela also established Luotsitiimi, comprising its own employees, and supported the team’s operations. Furthermore, measures were taken to develop the existing team structures to identify dependencies between different teams, thereby minimising bottlenecks.

Kela was also consulted regarding tools that would increase the transparency of work queues. Training materials were simultaneously created for internal use.

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