Engagement Overview
BC Housing, a provincial Crown corporation managing over 75,000 social housing units, engaged CivSafe to lead an agile transformation program for its 1,200-person technology and operations division. The 14-month engagement unblocked 19 of 23 stalled projects and established a sustainable internal coaching capability.
The Challenge
BC Housing's technology portfolio had grown faster than its delivery capability. A 2023 internal audit found that 23 active technology projects were materially behind schedule, with root causes including unclear ownership, absent product thinking, and delivery teams operating without meaningful stakeholder feedback loops.
Previous attempts to introduce agile methods had generated resistance, with staff perceiving methodology frameworks as management oversight tools rather than delivery enablers.
Our Approach
Human-Centred Discovery
Before touching any process or framework, CivSafe spent 4 weeks in structured listening sessions with frontline delivery staff, middle management, and executive sponsors. This surfaced the real blockers: role ambiguity at the team level, misaligned incentive structures, and a lack of psychological safety to surface impediments.
Tiered Coaching Program
We designed a 3-tier coaching model:
- Tier 1 (Executive): Monthly facilitated sessions with VP and Director-level sponsors focused on portfolio governance, prioritization decisions, and creating the organizational conditions for delivery success
- Tier 2 (Team Lead): Bi-weekly working sessions with Scrum Masters and product leads covering Sprint health, backlog management, and stakeholder communication
- Tier 3 (Team): Embedded sprint ceremonies, retrospective facilitation, and real-time coaching during delivery for 8 cross-functional teams
Internal Capability Transfer
A core mandate was to eliminate consulting dependency. We developed a 40-hour internal Agile Practitioner certification program, certifying 24 BC Housing employees as qualified internal coaches by the end of the engagement.
Results
- 19 of 23 stalled projects re-baselined and actively delivering within 6 months
- $7.1M in previously approved project budgets recovered and redeployed
- 24 internal agile coaches certified and actively supporting delivery teams
- Average Sprint velocity improved by 43% across coached teams
- Employee engagement scores in technology division increased from 58th to 81st percentile
- BC Housing presented the program at the Canadian Government Executive Leadership Summit
Key Takeaway
Agile transformation at scale is not a methodology project. It is an organizational development intervention that happens to use agile tools. Leaders who understand this get results. Leaders who skip to the frameworks get resistance.