Background
County Durham Housing Group (CDHG) is one of the largest housing associations in the north east of England covering 862 square miles. As part of their reorganization they decided to adopt an Agile approach to work and needed advice on the best way to implement this. They recognized that it involved a change in corporate culture and leadership so, as part of the implementation held a workshop involving Peter Thomson.
Agile working in housing
County Durham Housing Group (CDHG) is one of the largest housing associations in the north east of England covering 862 square miles. They were formed by the amalgamation of three housing associations in 2015 and are the providers of social housing for around 18,400 homes.
As part of their reorganization they decided to adopt an Agile approach to work and needed advice on the best way to implement this. They recognized that it involved a change in corporate culture and leadership so, as part of the implementation held a workshop involving Peter Thomson. Bill Fullen, the Chief Executive, had read Peter’s book and wanted to hear some of the message first hand. In his words “Future work has become my go to book for insight in to why organisations need to create an agile mindset. Peter’s session with our present and future leaders created a groundswell of enthusiasm for rethinking the way we approach work.”
The work was done in conjunction with Workpond and involved working with Rebekah Coombes, the OD and Change Manager for CDHG. Her comment after the workshop was “Peter gave a great keynote speech to our top 100 managers on the theme of agile working. He took the time to get to know our organisation so that his speech was in our context and he made us stop and think about how we are working and how we ‘engage with the future’. His presentation was entertaining and thought-provoking and left a lasting impression. It was a pleasure to work with Peter.”