The Collecting Group
Embedding Agile Practices to Accelerate Product Delivery and Growth
The Collecting Group, a fast-scaling global auction platform for collectible cars and watches, faced challenges with rapid growth, shifting priorities, and bottlenecks in their development process. Their teams lacked visibility, effective prioritisation, and a sustainable Agile approach to support expansion.
Nimble Approach introduced an Agile coach to embed best practices, build a culture of collaboration, and align backlog management with business priorities. Through workshops, mentoring, and process refinement, teams gained clarity, autonomy, and stronger alignment with strategic goals.
Within three months, The Collecting Group achieved a 50% reduction in cycle time, faster and easier releases, improved throughput, and enhanced team satisfaction – positioning them to scale sustainably and deliver customer value more effectively.
50%
reduction in cycle time.
Improved
throughput and reduction in dwell time.
Enhanced
team satisfaction.
The Challenge
Scaling Pains in a Fast-Growth Business
The Collecting Group, a fast-growing global auction platform for collectible cars and watches, faced the pressures of rapid scaling and portfolio expansion. Their development teams were struggling to keep pace with shifting priorities, which led to bottlenecks at the analysis stage and slowed delivery.
Traditional sprint cycles weren’t aligned with the dynamic nature of their business, creating friction between the need for speed and the ability to prioritise effectively.
To sustain growth, The Collecting Group needed greater visibility of work in progress, faster and easier releases, and value-driven delivery.
They sought external expertise to refine their Agile approach and build a foundation for sustainable, high-performance development.
Our Solution
Embedding Agile at Scale
Nimble Approach worked with The Collecting Group on Agile coaching, embedding practices that matched their scale-up environment. The aim was to shift prioritisation decisions to the business, while empowering developers to manage workloads more effectively.
We began with a thorough analysis of team culture, processes, tools, and Agile maturity, then delivered targeted interventions including workshops, mentoring, and coaching on backlog management. This created alignment between business strategy and development execution, ensuring teams understood not just what they were building but why.
By focusing on ownership, collaboration, and value delivery, we helped the teams gain clarity, improve processes, and move toward self-organisation without heavy reliance on external guidance.
Our approach
Nimble worked closely with everyone in the team to understand the issues faced and identify areas that could be tackled immediately, while looking at the medium and longer term coaching needs. The aim was to empower the teams to self-organise without relying on a Coach.
Analysis of:
- Team culture and behaviours
- Processes
- Tools and systems
- Knowledge of agile
- Product set
- Prioritisation and stakeholders / interested parties
Leading to:
- In person workshops on agile coaching
- Gaining wider perspective on business strategy and involving the development team in what that should/could look like and their part in that
- Individual mentoring
Working closely with:
- Head of Engineering
- SRE
- Team Leads
- Development teams
- Platform team
- Product Manager
Our Results
Delivering Twice As Fast
In just three months, the cycle time of delivery has now halved, which means the team is working twice as efficiently as they were previously.
The processes, techniques, and ceremonies that are now performed are well facilitated and focused on the work, i.e. deliverables, identifying blockers, bottlenecks, and understanding priorities. This means that teams are well informed and able to take more ownership of the work that they pull in rather than having it pushed upon them.
With cycle times reduced by half, the business is now releasing new features twice as quickly as it was at the end of 2022. This momentum has created a strong foundation for continued delivery and improvement, free from process bottlenecks. Agile coaching doesn’t need to be a long, drawn-out engagement – when teams are collaborative and open to change, meaningful impact can be achieved in just a short time. With the right focus and commitment, an Agile Coach can quickly unlock value and set teams up for sustainable success.
- 50% reduction in cycle time
- Improved throughput and reduction in dwell time across the team
- Enhanced team satisfaction
”Nimble's direct, no-nonsense approach was invaluable. Nimble integrated into our team, offering crucial insights and expert guidance to navigate our transformation.
Their coaching boosted our productivity, halved our release time, and significantly enhanced team satisfaction.
Nimble are an indispensable asset to teams seeking to optimise their product and delivery management processes.
OllyHead of Engineering at The Collecting Group
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