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A Waterfall to Agile Story – In Increments!

We’re huge fans of doing things in measurable increments to achieve lasting results – especially when it comes to change.

In our Incrementalism series, we’re sharing a client story today. Our client, regional, worth about $10B, had kicked off a waterfall to agile transformation for their IT & Software teams. Being a big, stable, capable company they had made some really smart hiring decisions in selecting their Agile SMEs. Being a big, stable, capable company they were also, inherently, slow to change. With Agile they expected to see big results, quickly.

Their change efforts were floundering for six months when we got the call to jump in. What the struggle came down to was attempting to change everything over to Agile in one fell swoop. Tools, Processes and People, most importantly, in IT and their business clients were dealing with brand new concepts and methods to transaction business between IT service delivery and stakeholders.

Our plan was to change in smaller increments, one cross-functional team, even one feature team if necessary, at a time, with discrete, measurable goals – and then iterate and build on it.

After overcoming understandable resistance born from six months of no progress, we got traction and got things rolling – showing and doing alongside the teams, then doing in parrallel, then expanding the scope, each time with the same incremental, measurable approach. Folks caught on quick we were using Agile to transform the teams SDLC to Agile too.

We taught the teachers, created internal advocates and won over stakeholders. Six months on, momentum showed the org was on a great track to continue on their own – and to this day, they’re happily plugging along with Agile and looking at how they can use the same methods to transform some of their business processes.

Keep shooting for the moon, but get there in increments.

We would love to hear your change transformation stories – good, bad & ugly!

Incremental Moonshots

Moonshots – great big lofty goals are awesome. We love them.

But you’re not going to get there swinging for the fences every single time.

In all the work that we’ve done, with technology with process with people and with mindsets, one constant has been the need for change.

Change is justifiably scary for most of us. Very few of us thrive on change. Even fewer successfully execute on making the changes necessary.

And that’s because we’re always swinging for the fences. If you’re not speaking for the fences, you’re not really working are you?

Let’s change that mindset a little bit. Realize that change comes and sticks in small increments and with constant commitment, not one huge swings that stand a higher chance of missing.

Start by redefining your goals. Take those BIG changes & decompose them down into smaller, incremental changes that build. Work on one at a time. Commit to it. Remember it takes 21 days to make a habit change, and 90 days to get it to stick. So be patient. Understand if you falter, be gentle with yourself, learn from the experience, then recommit to it.

Hail Marys are awesome for spectating, but they’re not repeatable.

Start small and build on each success. Pretty soon you’re standing on that moon you were shooting for. More importantly you got there without burning yourself out and with a newly developed mindset that’s elastic, resilient and able to face inevitable # disruptions.

Try it. Reach out if you want advice. We would love to hear your experiences.

https://lnkd.in/esaevkH

Case Study: Global Logistics Harmonization

We’ve got another case study up today.

One of our customers is a ecommerce fulfillment company based in South Asia. In 2015 our Client embarked on a global acquisition run, significantly expanding their ecommerce fulfillment operations globally. Their goal was to grow into a dominant global fulfilment arm – and they had the expertise and experience to do so.

Our Client ‘s IT leadership was tasked with bringing multiple logistics systems into harmony.

Multiple Systems, Multiple Cultures
Multiple Systems, Multiple Cultures

There were six different regional systems, each with their own unique local connections to other systems, such as transportation management, customer relationship management and payment systems. Our Client was not clearly aware that they were dealing with managing multiple, very disparate corporate cultures. Communications, and cultural differences, were significantly hampering progress and creating tension in staff. This was creating delays in an already complex harmonization project. Unfortunately, leadership was attributing this to technical complexity, not clashing corporate cultures.

1Focus pitched our people-centered approach around our technology & process capabilities. We created a strong scope covering logistics technology vertically and cultural harmonization horizontally. This included driving collaboration across international & cross-functional leaders & teams. Our Client decided to move forward with 1Focus and our 3+3 product.

Within two weeks of landing our team and presenting our findings, we clearly identified three very specific keystones that would be significant levers for people, process & technology. Our insight, candor, and firm commitment to stick to our 3+3 plan and scope, established a high level of trust & respect with our executive sponsors across functional areas.

On the technology front, we uncovered complex integrations that our Client believed called for whole-sale rip & replace – a very complicated and expensive effort. By relentlessly focusing on root cause, we traced these gaps back to a single, non-technical cause. The teams were marching to a global executive directive that had not been decomposed into a unified plan. There was a significant gap between the directives and the paths being pursued to accomplish them.

Multiple Transaction Translations
Multiple Transaction Translations

We showed significant time and monetary savings could be achieved by focusing on a series of off-the-shelf cloud-based message hubs & busses that would provide translation, out of the box, on 78% of the transactions. Being cloud based would also address the needs for a global system at a fraction of the cost. Of the remaining 22%, 12% were deemed localized, leaving 10% that would require any sort of custom development

On the process front, our Client was in the middle of evolving to more modern, Agile, processes. In fact, each of their acquisitions was at a different point of the maturity model on the Agile roadmap. They were using the same tool around the world – Atlassian’s software development management suite – but differently in each of the six regions.

There simply were not enough resources to go around to focus on multiple major projects, post-acquisition, with the busy season mere months away. Harmonizing the different installations of Atlassian was left for another effort, the following year.

While this remained an on-going thread through the project, working with our Client we were able to create a more unified team and a training program within 45 days, with the clearest outcome being more consistent, clear insight into where components of global projects stood, especially the logistics harmonization project.

On the people front – leaders and teams were starting to fall into crunch mode. This was especially concerning as the busy season for fulfillment (November through February) was three months away. During this period, systems were typically locked down and teams focused all efforts on ensuring the orderly flow of all types of transactions. No progress for four months was not palatable.

1Focus had experience working with creating and managing global development teams, with the largest having spanned 12 time zones. Fortunately, we had already established a foundational set of tools, methods & products for global collaboration, and this was one step further on that path. We continued to encourage safe, candid conversations, nudging the teams together and focusing on incremental, achievable progress.

The final landscape, including process & tools, went from being an ad hoc approach to a consistently, clearly communicated and agreed upon set of outputs and measurable progress. The teams could now more easily identify hurdles and gaps and address them.

In each case, we drove a tandem path. Focusing on root causes of people, process and technology issues and teaching, showing, and doing alongside leaders and contributors. In creating this momentum, Our client, like all our customers, quickly latched onto this new modality and was able to increase their momentum, going from peak to peak.

Over the next three months, right in time for their busy season, our Client was able to harmonize all but a few transactions. The teams, globally, expressed confidence that they would be able to finalize those last few transactions before busy season got in full swing – by the end of November.  Too, they were able to instill confidence and clarity in their leadership chain.

Our Client had spent nearly a billion dollars on its various acquisitions.  The estimated price tag, just for logistics harmonization, was close to $25M and expected to take two years. That was, widely acknowledge, an optimistic estimate given the current state of our Client even before we landed. 1Focus would, in working with our Client, ensure that the groundwork and foundation would be laid to ensure that project was more realistic and reasonable – and that it would complete.

We continued to track with Client and their final tally for such a complex project was 26

Accelerating Robotics
Accelerating Robotics

months, just short of two years. Their final all-up cost came out to $27M. The cost savings brought about by our improvements were realized across the board, allowing our Client to get a jump start on their investment into warehouse robotics and automation. They expected to make that additional investment back in two years, just on cost-savings for order fulfillment alone.

This is just one example of the success our customers have with 1Focus. We’re sure there’s a familiar sounding project where we could collaborate on at your company, addressing process and technology challenges, with people, your people, firmly at the center of any effort.

You can access the full case study as a PDF here.

Case Study: Mobile App Launch

I’m going to share a case study with you.

One of our Clients was struggling with releasing a pair of mobile apps for their service providers and customers. This app was focused on driving a higher level of engagement between the service provider and their customer. For example, enabling scheduling of services and sharing service outcomes with their customers.

Our Client is a highly successful, $12B a year North American organization that has a history that goes back 132 years. They have robust leadership, capable technology teams and proficient global technology solutions partners. Yet they had missed six releases and were at risk of missing a seventh. What had started out as an innovative effort was causing no small amount of heartburn and risking confidence in their leaders, teams, and partner.

A Project At Risk
A Project At Risk

Within two weeks of landing our team and presenting our findings, we clearly identified three very specific keystones that would be significant levers for people, process & technology. Our insight, candor and firm commitment to stick to our 3+3 plan and strong scope established a high level of trust & respect with our executive sponsors across functional areas.

45 days in from the start of our relationship, our Client soft-launched the first version of their mobile app to great celebration and fanfare. They proceeded to release three incremental versions over the next six months, building confidence and demonstrating the necessary capability to make this repeatable. Each release also brought additional capabilities as a bonus to implementing our methods and product – rather than leaving them on the roadmap for weeks or months out

In each case, we drove a tandem path. Focusing on root causes of people, process and technology issues and teaching, showing, and doing alongside leaders and contributors. Our Client, like all of our customers, quickly latched onto this new modality and was able to increase their velocity, going from peak to peak and showing measurable ability to deal with dips and surprises.

A Successful Launch
A Successful Launch

Our Client saved $3M USD in additional costs over the those six months – resources they were able to redeploy into productive outcomes. Their delivery went from zero success rate to an 85% success rate over the next 12 months.

This is just one example of the success our customers have with 1Focus. We’re sure there’s a familiar sounding project where we could collaborate on at your company, addressing process and technology challenges, with people, your people, firmly at the center of any effort.

You can access the full case study as a PDF here.

What Did You Do This Summer … ?

You remember those school reports – “What I Did on Summer Vacation.”
And maybe those movies too – “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

What did we do when the world changed, and went into lockdown?

We doubled down and focused on people, not just process & technology.

We connected with clients new & old, checking in with their mindsets – and how they were coping. Getting people into a more resilient, secure, safe mindset made subsequent conversations about remote working tools and processes, both more tactile and valuable.

Always start with your people.

Always.

There was no way we were going to be successful at changing work and leadership habits if we could not tend to mindsets first. Our experiences, and academic studies, have consistently proven out – happier, more resilient people work better, live better. Organizations that invest in creating those people, are inherently more resilient to disruption.

We tailored our services to accommodate different budget needs – including the micro-services of our Steps program and a subscription-based service in our əlastic Service. You can see those changes and new services at https://www.1focus.us/services/

Along the way, we realized we needed to encapsulate all the work we were doing and the new processes & techniques we were developing. We pulled together, remotely & virtually, across multiple time zones and researched and wrote 4 different books on “Coping with COVID”- essentially guides, and associated workbooks, for Leaders and Managers that, when followed, bring about the People Outcomes we are looking for whenever we’re deep in solving a process or technical challenge for our clients.

Check them out at https://www.1focus.us/eBooks/ – you can see a preview of a few of these pages below.

What did your people, your teams, your leaders – your organization do, when COVID changed your world?