From Chaos to Acceleration
Due to continuously missed deadlines, a growing product company specializing in tech and marketing products for credit unions and small regional banks were in danger of pleasing their customers. Leadership identified the threat and realized the organization needed to implement a change to win back their customers’ trust and confidence.
Unique Team Challenges
As with most organizations, a deeper look found that in addition to processes, culture and behavior also contributed to slow and unpredictable release cycles.
Waterfall
Traditional development process (Waterfall) contributed to unnecessarily long release cycles (3 – 6 months).
Changing Product Vision
Lack of communication and collaboration contributed to thrash and changing product vision.
Team Structure
Teams were organized by specialists rather than cross-functional teams.
Costly Rework
Extra-long feedback loops between development and testing resulted in costly re-work.
Manual QA
2 – 4 month QA testing period due to manual processes.
Our Solution
Agile Velocity Scrum coaches worked on location and implemented the Scrum framework with the team. At the completion of the assessment period, coaches worked with all levels of the organization to accomplish the following:
Agile and Scrum Implementation
Agile Coaches and Trainers worked with teams and leadership to teach and implement Agile and Scrum over a period of months.
Creation of Product Owner Roles
Coaches worked with leadership to create the Product Owner role and help those stepping into the role to own new skills and responsibilities including how to increase communication between stakeholders and manage expectations.
Cross-functional Feature Teams
Coaches worked with Leadership to create Agile cross-functional teams focused on small increments of functionality.
Collaboration Between QA and Development
Coaches worked with Leadership to help find ways to foster collaboration between QA and Development.
Test Automation and CI/CD
Coaches worked with Leadership to invest and help implement in Agile technical practices such as automated testing and CI/CD.
Key Takeaways from the Client
By receiving buy-in from all levels of the organization, Agile Coaches were able to guide the Scrum Teams to self-organize and rise to challenges that seemed unsolvable. Customer surveys that once showed frustration now have positive feedback from better products and shorter releases.
Measurable business outcomes include:
- Decreased Scope Creep
- Accelerated Release Cycles (From 3 – 6 months to 2 weeks)
- Foundation for more Agile technical practices
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