Holistic Student Care

CHALLENGE: The acceptance criteria were too detailed and complex, causing confusion among developers and leading to inconsistent understanding of requirements. The complexity of the ACs negatively impacted their ability to provide accurate story point estimations and resulted in misaligned expectations.

SOLUTION: The acceptance criteria were revised to be concise and structured in the Gherkin (Given-When-Then) format, improving clarity for interpretation and implementation. Product backlog items (PBIs) included a comprehensive definition of done (DoD), featuring clear scoping criteria to ensure all team members are aligned and equipped to deliver effectively.

CHALLENGE: The traditional PRDs were lengthy and dense, making it difficult for stakeholders and the development team to navigate and extract key information. This format reduced their utility as a planning tool.

SOLUTION: Refined the PRDs by including user story statements (e.g., “As a , I want so that ”). This method emphasised clarity, user outcomes, and direct alignment with team objectives, making the documents more actionable and easily understood.

CHALLENGE: The product backlog was an unstructured list of items that lacked precise alignment with the product vision. The structure made it challenging to prioritise tasks and maintain a strategic focus.

SOLUTION: The backlog was reorganised into structured epics and features, aligning with the product vision and strategic goals. This approach improved prioritisation, facilitated better planning, and ensured the team worked on items that delivered the most value.

CHALLENGE: Due to the complexity of product features, annual release cycles were the norm. However, this significantly delayed user value delivery, creating a disconnect between development efforts and user needs.

SOLUTION: Feature flagging was implemented to provide more incremental releases, enabling the team to deliver value frequently while maintaining system stability.

CHALLENGE: Due to the reliance on Sketch, UI design workflows were fragmented, leading to inefficiencies and delays in design handoffs to development teams.

SOLUTION: The team transitioned to a collaborative design environment using Figma, improving collaboration among designers and enhancing developer communication. This shift streamlined workflows, reduced bottlenecks, and fostered a more cohesive design-to-development pipeline.

CHALLENGE: Complex features had been deprioritised until late in the development cycle, leading to higher retrofit costs, increased risks of integration issues, and overall project delayed handoffs to development teams.

SOLUTION: Shifted the focus to prioritise complex features earlier in the cycle. This proactive approach reduced integration challenges, minimised rework, and ensured a smoother development process, saving time and resources.

CHALLENGE: Sprints were frequently disrupted by unfinished product backlog items (PBIs) carried over from previous sprints, creating inefficiencies and impacting morale.

SOLUTION: Introduced a balanced approach to sprint planning, using metrics from previous sprints to set realistic story point loads. Additionally, “stretch goals” were introduced to provide the team with optional objectives to tackle bonus PBIs, encouraging productivity without overburdening the team.

CHALLENGE: Project reporting focused solely on development phases, overlooking the critical contributions of design activities. A sole focus only on development activities created a disconnect, leading to incomplete insights, misaligned expectations, and an inability to understand project dependencies fully.

SOLUTION: Collaborated with stake holders to improve reporting to ensure coverage of design activities in conjunction with development. This integrated reporting approach provided a complete overview of the project lifecycle, promoting transparency, better alignment of stakeholders, and facilitating more informed decision-making throughout the project.

CHALLENGE: Traditionally, technical debt was deprioritised in favour of new features, which led to increased maintenance burdens and decreased system reliability over time.

SOLUTION: Adopted a balanced approach that dedicated specific capacity to addressing technical debt every sprint. A balanced approach ensured innovation while maintaining system performance and long-term maintainability.

CHALLENGE: Developers created bespoke solutions for repeatable design patterns within the UI, leading to inefficiencies, inconsistencies, and misalignment with the design system.

SOLUTION: Focused the development teams on developing reusable components aligned with the design system, significantly reducing redundant work. Tools like Storybook were implemented to document and share these components, improving onboarding for new team members and accelerating development timelines.

CHALLENGE: Retrospectives were uninspiring, lacked engagement, and often resulted in action items that were either unclear or unaddressed. Dull retrospectives hindered the team’s ability to improve processes effectively.

SOLUTION: Revitalised retrospectives use engaging formats that encourage team participation and open discussion. Actionable outcomes emphasised identifying improvements, fostering team cohesion and continuous enhancement.

• Simplified acceptance criteria using a concise Gherkin format, reducing ambiguity and accelerating decision-making.
• Introduced user-focused PRDs to align feature development with real user needs.
• Maintained a well-structured backlog that clearly mapped to the product vision, boosting team alignment and prioritisation.
• Achieved a 30% increase in development speed by minimising rework and enhancing clarity.

• Simplified acceptance criteria using a concise Gherkin format, reducing ambiguity and accelerating decision-making.
• Introduced user-focused PRDs to align feature development with real user needs.

• Prioritised complex features early to expose and address potential challenges before they escalated.
• Allocated dedicated capacity for technical debt each sprint, preventing system decay and costly rework.
• Maintained smoother execution with fewer last-minute issues and surprises.

• Provided comprehensive visibility into both design and development phases, eliminating blind spots.
• Fostered stakeholder trust through transparent fortnightly Showcase updates on progress and challenges.

• Focused on reusable UI components to standardise design and reduce repetitive work.
• Leveraged tools like Storybook for clear documentation and ease of component sharing.
• Ensured a cohesive user experience across the product, cutting down development time.

• Maintained and promoted robust communication channels (e.g., daily stand-ups, Slack huddles) to accommodate distributed teams and time zone differences.
• Utilised online tools such as Confluence, Miro, and Azure DevOps boards to maintain alignment on tasks and design.

• Revitalised retrospectives with engaging formats, boosting participation and morale.
• Adopted realistic sprint planning, balancing achievable goals with stretch objectives.
• Created a culture of continuous improvement, resulting in a more motivated and collaborative team.

• Standardised QA processes with clear acceptance criteria, ensuring consistent testing and fewer production issues.
• Utilised Azure DevOps Test Plans for objective tracking and prompt bug resolution.
• Delivered a stable and user-friendly product that consistently met high-quality benchmarks.

• Embraced continuous improvement, leveraging feedback to refine processes and product features.
• Balanced innovation with sustainable development by managing technical debt and future-proofing the system.
• Maintained a dynamic approach, allowing the team to respond swiftly to changing requirements and user expectations.