Agile HR Process

Redesign (CSR)

Company Name: CSR Limited

Location: North Ryde, Australia

Industry: Building Materials

Revenue: A$2.4 Billion

Employees: 2,700

Overview
CSR created a structured innovation methodology rooted in agile principles to scope
and design solutions for challenges with business practices, to define strategies and
to create products and services. HR at CSR used this to redesign its performance
management system to make it more relevant by grounding it in employee needs
and feedback. CHROs can use this case study to identify opportunities to apply agile
concepts to their functions.

Solution Highlights
This case study profiles CSR’s innovation methodology, which is rooted in agile
principles. The following solution highlights showcase some of the key agile aspects
featured in CSR’s approach, which we discuss further in this case study through CSR’s
redesign of its performance management system.

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 1

201645507
 ■ Dedicated Focus on Problem Identification: The project team works to identify the
root causes of employee concerns before considering any solutions to the initial
problem statement.
■ Continual Feedback Collection and Implementation: The project team facilitates
feedback sessions throughout the redesign process to strengthen and rethink
solution quality rather than confirm hypotheses.
■ Minimally Viable Products (MVPs): To test the redesigned solutions with end users
(in this case, employees) early, the project team builds and releases MVPs of
performance management solutions.
■ Autonomous Project Teams: A designated team of employees within the HR
function works to better capture, distill and act on employee feedback.

Objective: Diagnose Employee Concerns to

Create More Relevant Business Solutions
With increased access to employee experience data and digital business solutions,
HR teams can more easily find solutions that align with their stated challenges than
in the past (see Figure 1). However, without a deeper understanding of employees’
needs and challenges, or buy-in from managers, these solutions are often insufficient
or, worse, the wrong solution.

One solution CSR knew it would have to further explore to deliver a better experience
for employees was its performance management system.

Figure 1: Typical Approach to Solving HR Product Challenges

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 2

201645507
Business Context
Through its biannual organizational culture survey, CSR discovered employees were
unhappy with its performance management system. Employees were frustrated with
the complexity of the system and workflows; their limited access to support tools; the
cluttered year-end process, which affected the fairness of appraisals; and the overall
user experience.

CSR knew that to effectively improve its performance management system it would
have to better understand the issues raised in the survey. The HR team therefore
undertook an organization wide redesign of the system using CSR’s innovation
methodology, which is rooted in agile principles.

Solution Overview
CSR created its innovation methodology to better scope and design solutions to
challenges within its business practices, define strategies and create new products
and services. To create and test a new project management system, CSR engaged in
a deep dive into the issue at hand and iterated solutions based on employee feedback
through its identification, immersion, insights, ideation and impact phases, followed by
a pilot of the new system. (see Figure 2). In this particular example, the HR team at CSR
used this methodology to place employee feedback at the heart of its performance
management system redesign.

The team prioritized investing time and resources into understanding the key
issues underlying employees’ concerns as well as the impact on the business,
engagement and, ultimately, performance. This investment allowed HR to create more
relevant performance management solutions that better meet employee needs rather
than immediately implementing less employee-relevant, and ultimately more costly,
performance management solutions. HR also created opportunities to collect and
incorporate employee feedback as the team iterated new solutions from MVPs to full-
scale solutions.

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 3

201645507
Figure 2: CSR’s Innovation Methodology

Identification: Dedicated Focus on Problem Identification

Dedicate time to identifying the high-level challenge that the design process will solve.

The HR team at CSR uses data from its biannual culture survey to measure long-
term changes in employees’ experiences with — and general feedback about —
organizational processes. HR distills the feedback from these surveys to create a high-
level problem statement to work toward solving. The latest survey results revealed a
trend: Employees conveyed that while CSR was a great place to work, the company
needed to improve its appraisals of and incentives for performance.

This information provided a starting point for the team as it further investigated why
these issues were a concern for employees and what HR would need to do to fix
them. The initial synthesis of employee feedback also served as a base for the team to
come back to as it used design-thinking principles to create an improved performance
management system.

Immersion: Exploration of the Problem

Leverage various perspectives through multiple feedback sessions to fully scope the
issues underpinning the problem.

CSR created a dedicated project team comprising 10 individuals within the HR function
and tasked this team with fully scoping the problem and completing the redesign
project. The project team can act autonomously in the execution of various phases in
the innovation methodology as well as decision making throughout each step.

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 4

201645507
In the problem exploration phase, the team applied a customer-centric lens
by engaging in employees’ specific pain points within the current performance
management system. It also sought insights from other HR professionals about the
challenges they faced in redesigning or creating a performance management system.
The team collected feedback and perspectives through 40-minute interviews held
both in person and virtually. In all, the team interviewed 70 internal employees and
representatives from 16 external ASX 100[1] organizations with experience working
on performance management systems (see Figure 3).

Throughout the immersion conversations, project team members took detailed notes
— as close to verbatim as possible — to accurately capture experiences and feedback.
This context fed into 300 to 400 feedback statements (called “clues” by CSR),
which the team used to scope the key issues that the new performance management
solutions needed to address.

Figure 3: Immersion Into Employees’ Perceptions of the Problem

The project team used the clues from its immersion conversations throughout the
innovation process to quickly decide which performance management challenges
mattered most; the team then had the autonomy to move forward with ideas and
project plans.

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 5

201645507
Insights: Identification of Must-Solve Issues
Establish which underlying issues are critical aspects of the performance management
system from employees’ perspective, other organizations’ experiences and research,
not just from HR’s point of view.

With detailed clues in hand, the project team determines non-negotiable pain points
and enablers of success that must be solved in the redesign. They surface these during
an intensive day-long design thinking workshop, which encourages teamwork and
creative thinking, and provides the team with a narrower set of goals to work toward.

To kick off the workshop, the team investigates the most critical issues underlying
the problem statement and uses these “key insights” to guide solution creation.
Out of the hundreds of clues the team gathered during the immersion phase,
12 key insights emerged, which they grouped into thematic buckets (e.g., ratings,
remuneration, performance conversations, technology, supporting development and
career conversations).

Figure 4: Insight Surfacing

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 6

201645507
Ideation: Solution Generation and Prioritization
Flesh out and test several possible solutions to identified challenges.

In the next phase of the design thinking workshop, the HR project team generates
potential solutions for each thematic bucket. Examining one bucket at a time, the team
creates multiple solutions for each insight.

To do so, the team worked in pairs to create ideas for different buckets and completed
a template exploring what each insight meant for CSR and what HR could do about
it. Completing the template helped the team collaborate to flesh out proposals for
preliminary ideas in a concentrated time and place and gather peer feedback to
strengthen ideas. Using the template, the team:

1. Gives each solution a name

2. Defines the solution (e.g., tool, process)

3. Identifies the key insights the solution aligns to

4. Articulates the benefits of this particular solution

5. Determines the target audience

6. Outlines the action steps for executing the idea

7. Establishes expected outcomes of the idea

8. Creates a tangible illustration of the idea

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 7

201645507
Figure 5: Solution Ideation Template

To help them complete the templates effectively, the teams focused on the challenge
at hand as they generated ideas and kept the original problem statement and
accompanying key insights in front of them for easy reference. They used Post-it
notes, whiteboards and large sheets of paper to capture thoughts, suggestions and
key themes to keep in mind at each stage of the workshop.

The project team generated approximately 90 ideas to improve CSR’s performance

management system. Next, they paired down those solutions using an idea
“passionometer.” This is a voting process in which the team votes on ideas based on
how well they meet the project objectives. Ideas excluded from the final list were
stored in a virtual drawer for later innovation discussions. Ideas that received high
scores but overlapped thematically were grouped together into single ideas.

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 8

201645507
Figure 6: Idea Passionometer

The project team then split into smaller teams to further explore each high-scoring
idea and turn them into MVPs.

In the final phase of the design thinking workshop, the smaller project teams design
preliminary MVPs and share them with one another for immediate feedback. The team
builds each MVP with the goal of them ultimately working together as a system (not
just as one-off solutions) that HR would eventually pilot and roll out as CSR’s new
performance management system.

A notable component of early MVP creation is that each peer is encouraged to ask
“Yes, and …” when providing feedback to improve each team’s ideas. For example, a
peer giving feedback might ask, “Yes, and what if we added X? And wouldn’t it be
great if we could do Y? And would it work even better if we did Z?”

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 9

201645507
Impact: Solution Iteration and Improvement
Test the impact of hypothesized solutions with the goal of improving, not just
validating, hypotheses.

The next step for the project teams at CSR was to test and improve their MVPs
by gathering employee feedback. The teams invite all employees to voluntarily
participate in a series of “bounce and build” sessions, where teams share their ideas
with employees and refine them based on the feedback. To get perspectives from
employees in different geographies and of different levels, the team invited employees
to participate through a companywide email, resulting in over a dozen bounce and
build sessions across Australia. The goal of these sessions was to help improve and test
the applicability of multiple MVPs to benefit all performance management solutions
at CSR, rather than to select or improve a single MVP.

To prepare for the bounce and build sessions, the project teams develop scripts and
visual presentations that help describe their solutions and pitch them to employees.
Project team managers present each performance management MVP in five-minute
bursts, giving employees roughly six to eight minutes to describe what it would be
like to use each solution individually and how each solution works with others as a
whole performance management system. Specifically, they ask employees to address
questions such as:

■ What do you like about this solution?

■ What do you not like about this solution?
■ Do you think this solution can stand on its own?
■ Do you see any barriers to using or implementing this solution?
■ In what ways can we improve this solution so it can stand on its own?

After each session, the project teams improve their ideas based on the latest feedback.

Finally, CSR applies a stage gate framework to determine how to move forward with
each MVP, opting either to proceed with it, file it for further consideration at a later
time, pass it to another department or terminate it.

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 10

201645507
Figure 7: Stage Gate Framework

New Performance Management System Pilot

Prioritize gaining feedback about the user experience to improve solutions through
a pilot.

The project team then took the MVPs they decided to proceed with and drew the
entire performance management system on one page. They presented it to senior
executives and asked for business units and teams that could participate in a pilot.
The pilot grew to 250 people across six business units and provided user experience
feedback that the project team incorporated in every iteration of the new performance
management system. The pilot ran for 12 months, with the project team testing and
improving the performance management system throughout the process.

Importantly, unlike most pilots, the piloting phase at CSR is an opportunity to make
significant changes to the product. Following agile principles, the goal of the pilot
phase isn’t merely to confirm and finalize solutions but to continue testing and
incorporating feedback to provide the best possible solution. For example, the project
team hosted learning lunches and disseminated surveys to collect feedback from the
pilot group every four to six weeks after they had used the newest iteration of the
system. Improvements made during the pilot included adding business analytics and
data, providing more information about career pathing, and adding information about
remuneration. Each improvement was aligned with a specific MVP.

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 11

201645507
Results
The HR team put employees at the center of solution design to better address CSR’s
performance management challenges. Benefits include:

■ Easier Change Management — Changes to a solution are discussed with

employees as it is developed rather than at the end of a rollout, improving
employees’ capabilities and buy-in at an early stage.
■ Better Sustainability — As the solution is developed internally, HR can better
manage it in the short term and better adapt it in the long term.
■ Personalized to the Organization — The product is sensitive to CSR's employees'
needs rather than offering a “one size fits all” solution.
■ Faster Delivery — HR can offer solutions to employees sooner and better adapt
solutions to their needs.

Juliet Maynard, People and Safety Manager at CSR, comments, “We ran this process
ourselves, building capability in our people, and we have a whole team of people right
across our business who built, know, endorse and are using this product with their
own teams and their own managers, so we’re living and breathing the product every
day. The benefits of that are invaluable. We’re actually using it and we’ve grown in
the process rather than have a consultant come and just tell us and leave us with a
shiny new product.”

In addition to gaining a better set of performance management solutions, CSR’s HR

team:

■ Gained new HR and innovation skills

■ Improved their facilitation abilities by presenting to various audiences
■ Improved teamwork through the highly collaborative nature of the innovation
methodology

Q&A With Luke Murphy, Executive General

Manager of HR, and Juliet Maynard, People
and Safety Manager
Has CSR used this innovation methodology outside of the performance
management system redesign?

Yes, we use it everywhere from defining strategies to designing products and services.
It doesn’t matter if it’s HR, or safety or marketing; we will often use this innovation
methodology to create better solutions throughout the organization. Sometimes
on a full-scale project, like we did with the performance management system, and

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 12

201645507
sometimes on smaller projects. In the next few years, we plan to use it to help us
reimagine the employee experience.

What differentiates CSR’s innovation methodology from typical approaches to

creating business solutions?

The innovation methodology itself is characterized by agile principles, starting with its
flexibility and promotion of managing change along the way rather than waiting for
a big and inflexible solution to be rolled out. We’ve prioritized learning by doing and
used the tangible agile process (for instance, using task lists, rewarding team points
based on effort, measuring velocity on a weekly basis and ensuring accountability
to each other and process) to make sure the methodology keeps us moving forward
and pushes us to keep improving the solutions we’re offering employees. The team
involved is allowed and encouraged to make judgment calls and important decisions
along the way instead of being bound by typical hierarchical structures.

What do you think has made the methodology successful at CSR?

I think the process has proven to be a winner because it engages all employees along
the way, as we really listen to what they have to say and incorporate their feedback
to make our solutions better. Change management also becomes simpler because it
happens during the design process rather than the implementation process. A lot of
it is involving employees in change, so they sponsor and support it and ultimately feel
a sense of ownership over the results. I suspect that if we had just implemented a
technology solution, without all we did in between, we probably would have had a
different and less positive response.

How did the team operationalize the methodology on a day-to-day basis?

In addition to the dedicated ideation sessions we held, including the design thinking
workshop and bounce and build sessions, we found that using sprints and scrums
(quick turnaround times and fast-paced regular meetings) helped us make decisions
quickly as well as hold ourselves accountable to each other. We also took a tangible
approach to learning by doing and used things like task lists, tracking ideas and points
on Post-it notes or whiteboards, and peer recognition based on effort and weekly
accomplishments, to keep us motivated and on task. Incorporating a technology
platform to keep track of our progress allowed us to do this in a seamless way and
to stay connected. Later on in the process, we also broke into small groups to really
develop different ideas, and teams had full authority to implement decisions without
having to report to anyone else or be bottlenecked by more senior leaders needing
to approve each step of the way.

About This Research

This case study is based on extensive interviews with Luke Murphy and Juliet Maynard,
who helped run CSR’s innovation methodology for its performance management
system redesign, and our analysis of internal and external documentation provided
by the company.

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 13

201645507
Recommended by the Authors
■ “Employee-Powered HR Design (Vistaprint)”
See how Vistaprint applied agile principles to designate HR product owners, select
“employee champions” and use hypotheses and employee feedback to design and
iterate on minimally viable HR solutions.
■ “Agile HR 101: A Guidebook for HRBPs”
From its origins in software development, agile has become a popular work
management option for business functions outside of IT, including HR. This guide
helps HRBPs understand what agile is, how other HR organizations are applying
it, and how to apply it in their own work.
■ “The Journey to Agile HR”
Watch this replay to learn about the basics of agile as well as strategies for
implementing agile in your HR function.

Download presentation slides of this material.

Endnote
[1] The S&P/ASX 100 (XTO) is a stock market index that represents Australian large and
mid-cap securities. It contains the ASX top 100 companies by way of float-adjusted
market capitalization and accounts for 75% (March 2019) of the Australian equity
market.

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 14

201645507