Making agile work: Why GSK values skills over seniority
From building teams you can feed with two pizzas, to committing to regular retrospectives, agile working is helping GSK rethink how it does business in the era of Covid-19.
To make agile working a success, GSK prioritises collaboration and autonomy over rigid planning, and speed over perfection, all in the context of a ‘measured framework’.
Starting with a commercial imperative, uniting people around the challenge and building a team based on skills not seniority is key, as is committing to regular ‘retrospectives’ to assess progress.
The objective is not working faster, but working smarter within a framework which makes pace possible, explains senior director of the global production ecosystem within GSK Consumer Healthcare’s marketing Edge division, Sandra McDill.
“We could try things in a small way and see what our business would be able to do, before we scaled it up,” she explains. “So, we’ve gone from small agile practices in how we do content to this brand-new ecosystem that we’re rolling out globally.”