Tom O’Brien is the Founder and CEO of Sprintmodo. Based in Dublin Tom reveals to IIBN that Sprintmodo is a team activation company that helps teams deliver and track tangible business outcomes. We do this with our agile SprintActivation process, which is a practical, no-nonsense approach to address a business challenge, to prioritise tangible actions, to generate insights and to deliver. The result is a leap forward in momentum during the SprintActivation and the structure to keep delivering afterwards.
You can visit the Sprintmodo website here
Why does Sprintmodo exist?
Teams that deliver have better performance and engagement. After working in various corporate roles, including business development, sales and as an EMEA marketing lead for a drug with >€1b in sales, I realised that there are always lots of great ideas to unlock value in businesses, but everyone is busy on non-value adding work or working on the early stages of multiple ideas at once, that never quite get off the ground. I studied agile methodologies to learn about how software development teams get things done. From this, I developed the agile SprintActivation process, to help corporate teams to prioritise by value and deliver tangible business outcomes. The motivation we see in teams that are delivering, is why we keep going.
What are your main priorities and goals in your role?
My main focus is on identifying and developing ways to help teams to deliver. It is all about our customers getting more done than they ever thought possible and unlocking value.
What are your biggest challenges?
Perceptions of traditional consultancies are very different to what Sprintmodo offers. Expectations around traditional consultancies include getting a long slide deck of abstract ideas, that often never gets looked at again. Sprintmodo is an action-focused company that breaks down business challenges into prioritised tangible actions so that value is unlocked from day one.
How has your business strategy been adapted in the context of the Covid-19 crisis?
The SprintActivation process works fully remotely. We leverage cutting edge technologies as we work with teams to identify, prioritise, structure, test and deliver tangible actions. Before Covid-19, some clients were planning on working with us on face-to-face SprintSessions (workshops). The crisis has been an opportunity to give clients access to technologies and a process that helped them to get more done working remotely.
How can IIBN members help your business?
We are constantly improving how we can help teams deliver and track tangible business outcomes. I would be happy to speak with anyone who could help us with this mission. If you would like to change the trajectory of what your team can deliver – please get in touch about a SprintActivation.
How will Brexit affect you, or have you started to feel the effects already?
We currently have clients in Ireland, the UK and in other European countries. I see Brexit as a business challenge that our SprintActivation process can help companies to take action on.
What have been your highlights in business over the past year?
Sprintmodo started trading during this pandemic! Just before March, we were asked to run a competitive SprintSession in Vienna for a large corporate. When travel bans changed everything, the company didn’t believe they could run a successful alternative. We converted the event into an interactive virtual SprintSession for over 30 people from 10 countries and leveraged technology to provide even more tangible outcomes than could have been achieved in a face-to-face setting. I guess we will check out Vienna some other time!
What opportunities or plans for growth do you see in 2021?
After working with some medium and large corporate clients, including Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer in 2020, we are excited about building on this to help more teams deliver in 2021. We will also roll out the agile SprintActivation process in tailored Talent Development offerings.
