Pardeep "Paddy" Dhanda - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paddy-dhanda/, Creative Industry Awards Best Content Creator nominee, Agile Practices Director for the UKs largest technical training company QA and ex IBM'er tells us about what it was like working on the UKs largest ever (to date) agile failure the UK Department Of Work and Pensions (DWP) £2 billion Universal Credit Platform. Having been on benefits for half of his life, this was a topic close to Ben's heart.
With around £1.12billion burnt on consultants, Paddy tells us what it was like working there and what he blieves were some of the biggest hurdles that lead to the DWP pulling the plug on all agile development for this delivery.
Sounds pretty unbelievable right? You can find more information from this great write up from Computer Weekly - https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240187478/Why-agile-development-failed-for-Universal-Credit
What is:
- Housing benefit - https://www.gov.uk/housing-benefit
- Council tax benefit - https://www.gov.uk/apply-council-tax-reduction
So what was explored?
💣 A whole new reason why component teams are created that I had never though of.
💣How Paddy came from the UK's worst performing school to the UKs worst agile delivery
💣What was the human skill that was missing that caused it to be such a HUGE failure
💣 What do you get if you have 200 super intelligent consultants, what do you think they were optimising for?
💣 Universal Credit was seen as the UKs Conservative governments flagship agile programme, how did this contribute towards it's failure?
💣 <Sarcasm> How you can you be totally agile when you have vendors handing large requirement documents they have spent years writing? </Sarcasm>
💣 Why so many scenarios they had to implement couldn't be without them being discussed by the UK Government leaders
💣Do any agile approaches take into account the operational overhead created when technology is not the silver bullet?
💣 What is and who were the "middle users"?
Host Bio
Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.
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Ben Maynard
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Product Agility Podcast
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