Initially, we worked with the Chief Product Officer and key stakeholders to determine the requirements and measures of success:

• Modernise outdated ways of working with streamlined, efficient and updated processes
• Resolve cracks and friction in the solution implementation stage to reduce delivery and turnaround times
• Develop automated systems to reduce human error and reduce reputational damage risks.

We started the design stage and built a roadmap. Using a grassroots, user-driven approach, we worked with Rimes’ product and client implementation team to prioritise, assess feasibility, and validate ideas. Using our ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’ approach, we reviewed processes to identify improvement but also agree what didn’t need to change.

We developed the new toolkit to achieve success measures, for example:

• To bridge the language gap between user requests and the relevant code, we developed self-documenting code which described solutions and what the user receives in plain English (moving away from low-level terminology), without the need for extensive documentation.
• Implementing configuration as code to manage application configuration data reduced the risk of human error during solution deployment.

During the project, the implementation team were initially apprehensive about change, as the established processes had been in place for years. However, as development progressed, the team quickly began to see the potential benefits through product demos and a User Acceptance Testing Environment.

We spent time up-skilling the internal team – working to break down knowledge silos and bring in best practice, for example introducing a best-practice change review process using GitHub.

The solution is still in development and will be moving to user acceptance testing soon, before a pilot onboarding planned for August 2024.