Getting ahead with an Agile approach to growth

By Chris Downey

At Skyscanner, there is a hive of experimental activity taking place across different Tribes and Squads as teams help to meet traveller needs in new and novel ways.

With lab coats and explosions being optional, one of the experiments getting great results is an adoption of Agile and Lean principles for the traditional marketing and sales disciplines.

What is Agile?

The original Agile manifesto was forged in the fires of Mordor, erm, actually in a ski ranch in Utah in 2001. It was created as a counterbalance to a dysfunctional software industry that was slow, documentation and process-heavy with a penchant for command and control… not to mention extremely expensive. Many of the concepts introduced are common sense, but as is often the case, not common practice.

Things like ‘responding to change over following a plan’ has a universal meaning and is essential in all fast-moving industries to sustain and also disrupt.

Distilling some of the key principles down, here are some of the themes that undulate throughout and have universal application.

• Putting the user first 
  — giving users what they need in a timely way
• Continuous improvement — driving excellence through reflection and data
• Reacting to change — embracing change and being set-up to be able to react without losing a step
• Communication — clear and honest at all levels of a business with a focus on face-to-face communications
• Self-organising teams — empowered, autonomous teams that can make timely decisions without seeking approvals up the chain

In the proceeding 15 years, a significant momentum has grown, not just on the software development side, but also expanding into other diverse disciplines, such as marketing, law, education and healthcare. New techniques are continuously being created, refined and evolved.

What does that look like for Skyscanner?

Looking at the EMEA Growth Tribes in Skyscanner, Squads are structured around a specific country or region. They are made up of individuals from different functional disciplines of marketing, commercial, social media and PR, with a Product Owner helping to set direction in an inclusive way. Empowerment is a central aspect of a squad set-up.

As is the case in every company, teams are unique with their own dynamics and characteristics. There is no guarantee that what works with one team will work in the same way with another. That’s not to say that good practice is not shared and tried out, but it’s a realistic view that fine tuning is needed, aligning with a continuous improvement mind-set.

With such a fast paced environment, what is working well today may turn out to be a bottleneck in the future, so an evolution of process becomes key. 
I like to think of Agile as a toolbox of options. Not every problem in a team is nail shaped, so a hammer isn’t always the best choice. Finding the right tool for the job requires another key aspect of the Squad set-up — openness to trying new things.

Helping Squads on that journey are a pool of Agile coaches who aid each team in discovering a process that works well for them.

So what does that really mean?

What results is a fusion of techniques and an evolution of process that help Squads to increase flow, learn fast via experiments, reduce waste and most importantly bring value to travellers using Skyscanner.

The Agile toolbox that Squads dip into continues to grow, with squads experimenting with Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban and variations within. The scientific method is central to experimentation, along with the concept of Minimal Viable Product and Build, Measure, Learn cycles.

Making sure the right thing is being worked on is helped by approaches such as Impact Mapping and User Story Mapping.

Squads take time out on a regular basis to have a retrospective, reflecting on how they work together along with generating ideas to improve. Toyota Kata techniques also make an appearance, encouraging a Kaizen approach of small steps toward target states, under the direction of a specific vision.

Case Study

One Squad who adopted the Kanban methodology, embracing a “stop starting and start finishing” mind-set, generated some significant benefits.

One of the big benefits was around a reduction in the time taken from an idea to it being complete (Lead Time). The Squad saw a 60% reduction in the time taken to turn around ideas.

“The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.” Arie de Geus

From a high level this is how they went about it:

Visualising Squad Work

The Squad started by mapping out how work flows though from idea to completion.

The Squad then agreed a level of granularity that made sense for them and started making their work visible to their Squad-mates. An electronic Kanban board was used. Previously, work was hidden from all Squad members making it hard to really know the demand and capacity of the Squad.

Limiting Work In Progress

From queuing theory comes Little’s Law, a derivation of which states:

So in theory, reducing the number of things being worked on at once should reduce the average time from an idea to it being live (lead time).

The concept can feel strange at first and can clash with previous experience and world views of multi-tasking being good/necessary.

The Slack Side Effect

The real culture change and challenge was getting comfortable with the side effect that happens when a work in progress limit has been reached — Slack Time.

This can be something that teams struggle with and almost have a feeling of guilt about. If you have capacity and the current workload is at its maximum agreed limit, it’s your chance to have some time to improve in any way you want for example, helping a Squad member, watching a TED Talk, reading a book or up-skilling.

Without some sort of slack, I’m a firm believer that creativity and innovation can disappear, urgent tasks can become major disruptions, not to mention the risk of burnout of team members.

Getting efficient with process then allows Squads to start to overlay other techniques, with growth hacking experiments being a perfect fit on top of a solid foundation.

The one take-away

So to summarise, Agile techniques have transformed the way that the traditional marketing and sales departments are structured in Skyscanner, along with how people work with each other and the way output is produced. The process in each Squad is unique and is continually evolving as squads embark on their continuous improvement journeys.

If you enjoyed this post then you may also like my explanation of The culture of Growth Squads in Skyscanner.

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About the author

Hi, my name is Chris Downey and thanks for reading my post. I’m an Agile Coach at Skyscanner, primarily working with our EMEA Growth Tribe. My role is to help teams discover a process that works for them and help them on their continuous improvement journey. I’ve previously worked in the telecoms and finance industries and what makes Skyscanner stand out for me is that it has a real culture of learning and empowerment.