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Case Studies

Organizational Agility in a Global Medical Simulation & Clinical Education Equipment Leader

Organizational Agility in world's premiere vendors of medical simulation and clinical education equipment

Problem

Our client develops products and programs for healthcare providers, voluntary organizations, educational institutions, hospitals and the military worldwide.

 

It is a world leader in healthcare education and resuscitation training, the client empower lifesavers and healthcare workers, to help them save more lives by using immersive technologies and data-centric insights that can help to increase survival rates and improve healthcare quality.

 

The company is on hybrid office operation model post-pandemic and the team is located across the globe. Even though the company is a world leader in healthcare education, they wanted to bring in transparency, visibility and strengthen their development pipeline to achieve continuous delivery and agility in practices to respond to change to stakeholders, customers and consumer’s demand to provide them with the best healthcare products and training to impact more lives. They want a streamline release plan with new features and better learning experiences or most relevant and better knowledge experiences to end customers.

 

Key Business Demands –

  • An existing ART was in place with cadence set, there was a challenge of onboarding another ART which was heavily working in a waterfall model
  • Streamline process – One common framework across multiple teams
  • Incremental delivery – Continuous value realization
  • Execution Certainty – Prioritized backlog, transparency, predictability, continuous monitoring and improvements through metrics and reporting
  • Improved collaboration in hybrid teams and overall quality of delivery through best engineering practices aligned with the core business model.

Journey

  • Started the new ART with a small sized team
  • Education and awareness creation with SAFe Agile
  • Stabilizing the ART by implementing best practices for cadence and synchronization with agile teams 
  • Role based coaching at ART and Team levels
  • Onboarded an additional agile teams within the ART in a span of a few months
  • 25+ product and engineering members were coached on agile ways of working.
  • Implemented Scrum in team along with SAFe essential PI experience
  • Teams were coached on multiple collaboration tools & techniques.
  • Revisited project management tools and board to leverage maximum impact to experience team and program level interventions
  • Coached on requirements gathering, breakdown and estimation for PI planning and facilitated pre & post PI best practices to ensure success of SAFe Program Increment event.
  • Implemented metrics and dashboards and coached the team on translating and retrospection for continuous improvement.
  • Periodic incremental outcome based improvement and executive summary updates to leaders on value delivered and PI objective goals

Outcomes

  • Uniform & consistent SAFe agile adoption within the organization
  • Creation and sustenance of self-managed, mature Agile teams
  • Improved understanding of client centric requirements and estimation of work  which impacted the overall clarity, ownership, predictability and release cycles
  • Teams started demonstrating incremental delivery in the iteration that accelerated the releases, followed by system demo before scheduled release to all stakeholders
  • Introduction, implementation and maturity in engineering practices like pair programming, automation etc. to improve the productivity and overall product quality
  • Streamlined and simplified business requirement documentation using functional & technical mindmap, UX wireframe & Mockup, brainstorming and async collaboration
  • Jira dashboards, ROAM board, Program level roadmap & many more metrics designed to visualize PI progress, quality, risks, dependencies, impediments and others.
  • Data driven decision making using Jira reports to track work progress, capacity allocation, scope creep, estimation variance and other parameters that helped to successor PI planning in better way
  • Improved collaboration & work visibility across the team through SAFe PI

Organizational Agility in a UK based Proptech Firm

Organizational Agility in a UK based Proptech Firm

Problem

Our client is a UK based proptech firm that develops property management software for the UK market. Pioneers in building intelligent solutions such as online portals, cloud based infrastructure and service delivery et al. in the UK, their aim is to make their clients’ property journey seamless.

 

Their development team – 60 members works out of India, while their product and business teams are based in the UK. Essentially a 100% remote working model, the teams have been operating a partial scrum framework.

 

The client was facing issues around clarity on their roles and responsibilities, lack of sprint discipline, loosely defined process framework, capacity and load management issues, poor planning, poor requirement comprehension by the team resulting in rework, lack of one team mindset, blame game, poor communication. The focus of the engagement was to increase predictability, visibility of work to be delivered, bring in open, transparent, and proactive ways of communication among team members, improving the elicitation of requirements, and building a one team mindset.

Journey

We started our journey by initiating coaching for a few select teams. Scrum masters were  trained on their roles and responsibilities, with a focus on converting them to leaders – from mere task masters. Product owners (POs) were identified and coached on relevant topics – eliciting requirements using techniques like mind mapping, conducting product discovery sessions for new projects et al.

 

On completion of the initial coaching, our focus turned to tying the loose ends observed – starting with setting a 2 week cadence for sprints. Discipline and regimen was brought in across all Scrum practices. Mere following and participation in the scrum events was replaced with a more focus on collaboration and outcome oriented, thus cultivating a one team mindset .

 

A blend of both scrum and kanban practices was introduced in the customer support team to better manage production issues.Leadership sessions were conducted for the tech leads to hone their leadership and problem solving skills. 

 

With frameworks and required discipline in place for better predictability, we then introduced essential SAFe for all teams. 

 

  • Potential project managers were identified and coached on RTE roles
  • Regular team building activities were introduced to improve one team mindset
  • Jira hygiene levels were increased to generate sprint wise reports.
  • Dashboards for quality were developed
  • A technical guild was created
  • A COE was set up, to help teams continuously improve

Outcomes

All teams involved were synchronized to a two week cadence, thereby creating visibility on what will be done and by when. This also helped ensure predictability levels, by enabling the commercial / sales team better understand and commit release dates to their customers.

 

The kanban approach helped the development and commercial teams to visualize and prioritize work. Blocked production issues were identified immediately which in turn expedited the resolution of issues by relevant team members

 

Techniques used for requirement elicitation by the Product owners helped right size user stories – just enough information. This in turn helped the development team plan sprints more effectively.

 

Teams started following the principle “Stop starting start finishing work“ which reduced context switching and drove a one team mindset

 

The ‘Essential SAFe’ implementation brought in better predictability and viability at release levels. SAFe events like PI Planning increased the engagement levels between the leadership, sales/commercial and development teams.

 

The focus shifted from merely delivering functionality to delivering added value to the customer.

 

Teams started going beyond delivering quality software, by continually improving levels of technical excellence – dedicating part of their sprints around this focus area. 

 

Working agreements and norms around JIRA hygiene made the automated ‘sprint metric’ dashboards more current and relevant.

 

Sprint wise team health assessments were conducted. Measures to improve the team health  included fortnightly water cooler sessions, team building activities, training on new technologies etc. This led to a culture of continuous improvement and stabilized agile adoption across teams.

Organizational Agility in fastest growing Cryptocurrency Exchange Firm

Organizational Agility in a fastest growing cryptocurrency exchange firm

Problem

Our Client is one of India’s leading & fastest growing Cryptocurrency exchange startups, the client is a real disruptor with a highly motivated, skilled young team with cutting edge technological capabilities. They build intelligent solutions for their customers and focus to deploy continuously to enhance their customer experience & improve productivity.

 

The company is completely remote post pandemic and the team is located across India.

 

They want to streamline their development process to achieve continuous delivery and agility in practices to respond to change to compete with market uncertainty, competition and stakeholders demand in a dynamic, rapidly changing environment with frequent regulatory requirements.

 

Key Business Demands – Streamline process, incremental delivery, transparency, predictability, continuous monitoring and improvements through metrics, improved collaboration in remote teams and overall quality of delivery through best engineering practices aligned with the core business model.

Journey

Our journey started by identifying a pilot project with Agile and Scrum adoption, which was later scaled to all teams in a span of a few months.

Implemented Scrum in a ~50 member digital program involving multiple functions, vendors & systems with periodic agility health assessments & scaling using SPOTIFY agile model

Teams were coached on collaboration tools & techniques. Project Program Management governance framework was redefined with product discovery, business metrics & client centricity aspects. Periodic showcase to leaders on value delivered & this improved trust and bond between levels.

Outcomes

  • Uniform & consistent agile adoption within the organization
  • Creation and sustenance of self-managed, mature Agile teams
  • Improved understanding of client centric requirements and estimation of work which impacted the overall clarity, ownership and predictability
  • Teams started demonstrating incremental delivery in the iteration that accelerated the release
  • Introduction, implementation and maturity in engineering practices like pair programming, unit testing, automation etc. to improve the productivity and overall product quality
  • Streamlined and simplified business requirement documentation using brainstorming & async collaboration sessions including timeboxed meetings for remote working.
  • Confluence workspace, Jira dashboards, Velocity, Program level roadmap & many more metrics designed to visualize progress, quality, risks, impediments and others.
  • Data driven decision making using Jira reports standup & other discussions, tracking work progress, scope creep, commitment variance and other parameters.
  • Improved collaboration & work visibility across the team (what-next & when)
  • Overall sense of accountability, transparency, inspect & adapt culture
  • Grooming and internal capability development + creation of Agile playbook and reference videos for sustenance, uniformity, momentum and continuous improvement

Org agility at Major Insurance Firm by bringing Inter-Functions Fluidity

Organisational Agility case study

Problem

Our Client wants to bring new ways of working to adapt to changing trends and inculcate one team mindset.

The org has hierarchical structure, bureaucracy & hand-over delays. Almost all initiatives are dependent on multiple functions with conflicting interest, siloed management, lack of ownership & resistance to change.

Traditional SDLC models are loosely implemented, escalations & interpersonal relationships are used to resolve bottlenecks and there is a lack of new age project management to improve visualization which is a necessity in remote working environments caused due to COVID pandemic.

Journey

A year long transformation journey, identified pilot projects, formed PODs, trained ~80+ members across functions, defined process frameworks, formulated Agile Community with 70+ members & 7 core committee leaders

Implemented Scrum in a ~50 member digital program involving multiple functions, vendors & systems with periodic agility health assessments & scaling using SPOTIFY agile model

Teams were coached on collaboration tools & techniques. Project Program Management governance framework was redefined with product discovery, business metrics & client centricity aspects. Periodic showcase to leaders on value delivered & this improved trust and bond between levels. 

Outcomes

Streamlined POD structure to create ONE TEAM mindset for faster resolution, quick decision making & meaningful communication. Improved visibility at leadership levels through weekly insights using measurable indicators on online dashboards (also RAID logs, RAG reports & other BAU)

Simplified cumbersome business requirement documentation activities through shorter feedback loops, outcome based brainstorming sessions & interactive, simple knowledge base. Agenda based timeboxed meetings enhanced discipline, focus, & productivity essential for remote working.

Jira dashboards, Velocity, Gantt, burndown charts & many more metrics designed to visualize progress, quality, risks, impediments and others. ‘Agile Ready Reckoner’ and ‘Agile Playbook’ prepared for stakeholders at various levels.

Business Agility Transformation for a global leader in Payments Solutions

Business Agility

Problem

Our client is creating an omnichannel solution that once developed will replace the specific regional solutions & has more than 20+ components who need to work in tandem to deliver against the market commit dates. Leadership wants execution certainty at all levels – from individual performance till portfolio success.

 

Business drivers – Transparency, Predictability, Time to market, End user satisfaction, Quality, Measurable outcomes/ productivity, Cost saving, Performance Optimization, Continuous Monitoring.

Journey

22 component teams

6 Regions

A Group size of 130+ engineers

2 coaches working closely with the teams for 12 months

 

Created COE, developed ScrumMaster, Product Owner roles and introduced Automation

 

Started with creating 4 success stories and within months scaled agility across all components throughout the Omnichannel solution.

Outcomes

Scrum of scrums resolved Inter-team dependencies & alignment to shared goals in parent backlog. Burndown chart & velocity tracking minimized commit dates anomalies. Sprint cycles of all 20+ component teams were synced to bring program level transparency & predictability

Control charts to visualise wastes & reducing lead & cycle time
Cumulative flow diagram helped us in managing input queue & workload
Frequent reviews at component, inter-component & region level helped us visualizing end to end workflow & improving regression cycles to promote continuous testing and seamless production release.

Agile at Scale led by Spotify Model for a leading Product Engineering Firm

agile at scale led by Spotify model

Problem

Our client is serving their UK based partner for digital projects on audio domain. Here the software & hardware intervention is key and there has been huge dependency on availability devices by OEMs


Communication among all stakeholders – development team is based in India, the product owners are based in US, project coordinator is in Taiwan and project sponsors are based in UK


Business drivers – Transparency, Predictability, Time to market, End user satisfaction, Quality, Measurable outcomes/ productivity, Cost saving, Performance Optimization, Continuous Monitoring.

Journey

4 Scrum teams & multiple business leaders

Distributed teams across 2 Regions

A Group size of 38 engineers

Pilot Spotify Agile model

2 coaches working closely with the teams for 3 months remotely

 

Streamlined reporting and metrics Created COE, developed ScrumMaster, Product Owner roles and introduce Behavior Driven Development.

Outcomes

Restructured teams to make them more focused towards client expectations with fully dedicated resources and stable outlook to avoid context switching.. Resolved challenges of Distributed teams like language, cross culture & time zone differences.

 

In remote working, it was imp not to get trapped in zillion meetings., concept of ‘no meeting zones’ to optimize  productive time was implemented.

 

We scaled using Spotify Agile model, cross-team technical knowledge sharing group to benefit from economy of scale. Metrics & reports to bring visibility to all including client, Improvised project management tool – JIRA and made it more relevant.

Waterfall to Agile transition for a Payment Solutions group in Petroleum Domain

Waterfall to Agile Transition

Problem

Our client is focused on providing end to end user experience at gas stations in North America & South America which includes Point of Sale, Forecourt, Food Services and other areas. The teams were working on legacy systems and need to upgrade to new systems while supporting new digital requirements of their customers

 

The group was distributed across India, US and Canada

 

Teams were of varied agenda – customer projects, new initiatives, technical excellence

 

Have been working in waterfall and have no experience on agile ways of working.

Journey

13 Scrum teams & multiple business leaders

2 Regions, Distributed Teams

A Group size of 105 engineers

3 coaches working closely with the teams for 12 months

 

Implemented business contingency plan for the effects caused due to covid-19. Implemented scaled agile approach – SAFe. Bridging cross culture gaps and bringing harmony in distributed teams and hierarchy.

Outcomes

Product discovery was internalized to bring  client centricity through persona mapping & user journeys. Teams were trained &  coached teams on Essential SAFe & preparing incremental cadence

 

Enact business contingency plan to cope up with immediate remote working situation due to pandemic and ensure BAU.

 

Conducted 6 months programs to train the in-house Scrum Master & Product Owner candidates to ensure self-organizing trait across the group

 

Ensured fulfilment of business KPI of timely delivery and visibility of progress.

Organizational Agility in a major IT Services Firm

Organizational Agility in IT Firm

Problem

Our Client is one of the major IT services firm. They build intelligent solutions for their customers by applying data driven approach to enhance their customer experience & improve productivity.

 

They want to streamline their delivery process to ensure all the projects follow agile ways of working to support various models like TNM, Fixed bid and retainer models.and support their customers ( existing and New) increased demand of agile delivery methodology

 

Key Business Demands – Need Streamlined process, KPI metrics, reporting to drive predictability productivity, transparency, improved customer collaboration and overall quality of delivery.

Journey

Coached 300+ engineers on agile ways of working

Implemented Scrum in 19 teams

Implemented Kanban in 4 teams

Role based coaching and training for 15 Project managers

Jira best practice trainings and coaching for 23 Project teams

 

Streamlined metrics and reporting with a common template for all projects

 

Setup Process compliance to track and validate agile adoption.

Outcomes

Trainings and handholding the entire workforce ensured relevant agile knowledge within the organisation

Project level hands-on coaching for the teams, key stakeholders helped driving of all the projects with appropriate agile frameworks

Automated Jira reports helped teams, customers and key stakeholders to track the metrics and reporting was seamless

Introduction to discovery sessions ensured harmony between customers, sales and delivery teams

Velocity chart, control chart, cumulative flow diagram, burndown chart, and other metrics helped the stakeholders with execution certainty.