RBA Croatia - Agile Coaching for HR Department

After witnessing how agile coaching helped their tech teams work more efficiently Human resources department in Raiffeisenbank Croatia wanted to try and introduce agile principles to their team to improve collaboration and efficiency.
Some of the team members were unfamiliar with agile concepts and methodologies and some of them had basic knowledge of theory and concepts  so the team wanted to make sure they avoided one of the most common reasons for failing when introducing agile in organisations – lack of explicit knowledge and experience with agile methods.
Investing in proper training and competent coaching therefore is crucial in successful agile transformation of a team or an organisation. Enter CROZ’s Agile Coach and evangelist Davor Čengija.

The project started with a 2 days intensive workshop for the team to familiarise with agile principles, so they would be able to apply them in their everyday work.

“Apart from learning about agile and kanban systems, the workshop helped us become more aware of our current processes, theirs pros and cons and how they could be improved, says Sanja Mrvoš Drobac, Organisational Development Expert, RBA.

It continued with weekly sessions where Davor helped us to find best way and answers to specific questions related to particular challenges RBA Human Resources team had and how to improve specific processes.

“It was not an easy task to honestly and objectively analyse ourselves and face the truth, but have managed to do it, learned a lot and have started reaping the benefits of the training and coaching almost immediately.
HR department has its internal kanban board which makes it much easier for the whole team to always have an overview of what is being done, what’s the progress of the projects and spot potential bottlenecks in time, explains Sanja.
And in true agile manner, she admits the team still has room for improvement and has not stopped working on it which is exactly in line with what their coach Davor Čengija explained was the point of the training – instead of ‘force feeding’ the team with agile and promising it would magically solve all their organisational problems, empowering them with intrinsic motivation, knowledge and techniques to self organise and continuously change.