Case Study: HMRC Messaging Delivery Group Agile Adoption

Terry Beavis | Monday, August 12th, 2019

HMRC required a new agile team to provide integration services for new HMRC Digital Services.

Our consultants:

  • Created a multi-disciplinary Scrum Team comprising: a Scrum Master, a Technical Business Analyst (acting as pseudo-Product Owner), a Lead Developer, two Senior Developers and an Automated Tester.
  • Created an Agile Backlog (leveraging JIRA) in conjunction with the wider Customs Declaration Service Programme team to operate in a Scaled Agile Framework environment.
  • Setup Scrum ceremonies (Daily Stand-up, Backlog Refinement, Sprint Planning, Show-and-Tells, Retrospectives) to develop Digital Services inline with Programme/Corporate objectives.
  • Provided Architectural and DevOps support; adding governance through JIRA workflows.
  • Standardised software development using Maven.
  • Enforced coding best practises using SonarQube.
  • Adopted a Test Driven Approach, automating functional testing using SOAP-UI and non-functional testing using JMeter.
  • Created a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery system using Jenkins pipelines.
  • Scaled the team to encompass multiple teams across multiple programmes:
    • Customs Declaration Service – eight Scrum Teams.
    • Border Systems Programme – three Scrum Teams.
    • Multi Annual Strategic Plan – one Scrum Team.
  • Improved efficiency through Lean techniques and adopting templating for Features/User Stories in JIRA.
  • Provided agile estimates for programme/project planning.
  • Led integration of legacy, COTS and bespoke systems in multi-vendor environment.

Our consultants produced integration services more efficiently than the incumbent supplier; leveraging their experience in agile.

Filed under: Agile Adoption, Case Study, Solutions