• Cases

ARISE. Agile biodiversity mapping

ARISE, or “emergence. The appropriate name for this mega mission that will create a complete overview of all multicellular flora and fauna in the Netherlands. But how do you get that done within 5 to 10 years? That question will be answered by NWO, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, University of Amsterdam, University of Twente and the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute. Trainer and Agile Coach Steije de Lat facilitated the smashing start of the diverse team with a grand mission.

Species recognition and biodiversity monitoring.

There is already worldwide attention for ARISE. Logical, because the complexity and impact of this mission are huge. With ARISE, a unique infrastructure is being built to quickly and semi-automatically identify and track multicellular flora and fauna in the Netherlands. For this purpose, eDNA, image and sound recognition and radar data will be used. All parties involved and brand-new ARISE team members are already active in the field of sensors, eDNA, image recognition, radar, sound and data science for species recognition. But now all the data (and parties) need to start working together in a new pioneering infrastructure.

The question to Scrum Academy

How can we build a big, complete and complex platform in ten years, yet start small? And to make it even more complex; how can we best collaborate with 30 people from different organizations without losing sight of the mission? These are the two questions that Steije de Lat wants to answer together with all team members in just 2 days. And that while the ARISE team compares the platform to be realized to platforms like Amazon, Airbnb and Spotify. ‘They too were not realized in 1 day, but built iteratively’. And so an Agile mindset needs to emerge at ARISE as well.

The approach

Scrum Academy, set your world in motion! We don’t use that payoff for nothing and so Steije also chooses to work with each other as quickly and intensively as possible. He facilitates a two-day Agile Bootcamp on location and an extra Bootcamp day for all team leads. And not so surprising after a period of working from home and working together in a new team; some team members are seeing each other for the first time!

Early on during the first interactive day, the first conclusion is drawn; as a team we want to start working Scrum-inspired. What follows are very energetic days where all priorities are sorted out and the focus is on what the user of the platform to be built will need (and somewhat less on what the team thinks they need). During the extended Storymapping Exercise, the whole big “chunk of work” is broken down into smaller and more concrete steps.

The result

The results of the Agile Bootcamp are impressive and team ARISE is immediately inspired to get to work! There is a lot of energy, insight and focus to take the first small steps towards a great result. Because of the clear prioritization and insight into the work of teams, the team can immediately start building first pilots and prototypes. And after that? With the resulting Agile mindset, the team will continue to work flexibly and iteratively without losing touch with the end user. So ARISE goes Agile! Curious how your team can take the first or next Agile steps in a bootcamp? Feel free to call us.