As one of the world’s most successful lottery operators, Camelot has overseen the UK’s National Lottery since its launch in 1994, and can look back on an enviable track record of cost-efficiency and responsible growth.

However, after nearly 20 years of operation, it identified a risk to its future development plans – a legacy web platform that required it to rely on a third-party supplier.

In order to maintain its competitive position and take advantage of new opportunities for revenue growth, Camelot embarked on an ambitious re-platforming programme.

How we helped

A team from Equal Experts was engaged by Camelot to deliver the subscriptions component of the new system. During this initial engagement, during which we were embedded at Camelot’s headquarters, we were approached to review the wider programme – at which point we carried out an extensive evaluation of all ongoing software development work.

This enabled us to gain an in-depth understanding of the task at hand, and our collaborative approach enabled all parties to gain a clear picture of progress to date. The key challenges were the complexities of working within a heavily regulated environment, and the rapidly changing needs of a multi-device audience, which formed the basis of a new, achievable delivery roadmap.

A favourable response to our proposal from the Camelot board led to us being asked us to take over responsibility for the overall development plan and delivery – which we were more than happy to do. We scaled our approach accordingly and established the following:

• Consistent, transparent reporting metrics, enabling the management team to identify and resolve issues quickly
• A collaborative working approach that removed barriers and empowered business owners
• Modern Agile development methodology, blended to accommodate Camelot’s stringent regulatory and audit requirements
• Co-location in Central London, attracting high quality personnel and enabling faster delivery
• New integrated team structures, breaking up organisational silos to accelerate delivery

The result

The Equal Experts team took on its leadership role in February 2013, and successfully delivered the new platform in March 2014 – one month ahead of schedule.

“One of the biggest differences we saw was when we worked together to establish a Camelot Central London Delivery Centre – this really helped the development and operations teams work together to deliver the platform” – Neil Kellar, IT Director, Camelot

Working side-by-side with Camelot to embed Agile delivery methodologies, and introducing organisational changes to support ongoing software development, we left the organisation with a firm foundation for future success.