NewsUK - The Real-Life Transformational Fairytale: How News UK Technology went from Agile Crawling to Agile Cruising in Under 3 weeks

10.50am – 11.20am GMT, 23 March 2023 ‐ 30 mins

Business Agility

The Real-Life Transformational Fairytale: How the News UK Technology Team Went From Agile Creeping to Agile Cruising Within a Few weeks 

Helen van der Straaten

Helen van der Straaten

Program Management Office Manager, NewsUK

Helen has a background in engineering and agile project management. Currently responsible for the PMO at News UK which has grown from a reactive instance to a dynamic proactive team based across Sofia and the UK. Responsibilities include recruitment, finances, strategic management reporting, establishing guidelines and governance frameworks. 
Website:
www.news.co.uk/
LinkedIn:
https://linkedin.com/in/helen-van-der-straaten-aba973136/
Nzinga Gardner

Nzinga Gardner

Business Operations Analyst, NewsUK

Nzinga Gardner is currently a Business Operations Analyst at News UK. She has spent most of her career in the media and tech sectors performing key business functions for large complex organisations often in a state of flux due to the rapidly changing tech market. Nzinga’s roles have grounded her in business and project management, governance, strategy, communications and corporate affairs. Outside of work Nzinga enjoys the arts, photography and volunteers as a Patient Advocate and sits on the board of Trustees for a charity tackling poverty in the UK.
Website:
www.news.co.uk/
LinkedIn:
https://linkedin.com/in/nzingagardner/
NewsUK

NewsUK

News UK Technology (Tech) is the digital team behind big media brands such as The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, talkSPORT and Virgin Radio. It is made up of about 450 FTEs based in the UK, Bulgaria and India. We have dedicated teams for each of our brands focusing on the front-end customer experience, butunderpinning it all is our platform teams who support our cross-brand capabilities. Our Tech team is formed of talented individuals from multiple disciplines: engineering, product management, delivery, business analysis, quality assurance and product design, working collaboratively across many projects to achieve our organisational goals. Because we operate in a volatile, fast-paced and competitive technology market, we must respond quickly and adapt to change in order to remain competitive. For this reason, News UK Tech have transformed and embedded agile ways of working through learning and development, continual improvement, clear and effective communication, transparency, iterative development and valuing people over processes, empowering them to be effective, high-morale team players. 

Twitter:
@NewsUK
Website:
www.news.co.uk/
LinkedIn:
https://linkedin.com/company/news-uk-technology/