One Team Became Two

Background

A major Swedish insurance and banking company (6,500+ employees) needed to build and run the SaaS application Lumera, The team was working within a SAFe framework. The original team of 15 people owned everything: application, databases, integrations, testing, and support.

The Challenge

• Oversized team with unclear roles — constant friction and inefficiency.

• Knowledge bottlenecked to a few senior members; new members lacked ownership.

• Work was chaotic, making quality delivery difficult.

Our Approach

• Split the team into two: one focused on production/integrations, the other on test environments and support.

• Kept a shared Product Owner to ensure alignment.

• Built workshops and tools to foster collaboration across both teams — shared dailies, personas, and joint feature work.

The Result

• Juniors gained confidence in test environments, while seniors focused on production.

• Stress levels dropped, natural T-shaping and ownership emerged.

• Internal conflicts disappeared.

• Support quality improved by 50% through a structured funnel that redirected ad-hoc requests (email, Teams) into Azure boards.

What We Learned

• Teams want to collaborate, but they need clarity and safety to thrive.

• Structure beats dependency: when work is transparent, it becomes shareable.

Framework Resources Used

Team Purpose Template – Aligned everyone on the problem they were solving.

Roles & Responsibility Builder – Clarified ownership and created a strong 6–9 person core.

Customer Persona Template – Defined end users and their real needs.

Working Agreement Template – Set team norms and structures.

Fast Breakdown Funnel – Turned large, messy items into smaller, actionable work.