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Agile Transformation for a Product Compay

Organization Building & Agile Transformation for a start up Product Company

Our Customer is a venture funded start up product company, developing complete software solutions for highly dynamic hi-tech smart phone market, based on Google Android platform. The company’s customer base includes a number of global mobile phone companies and telecom operators.

Challenge

Our Customer started the business during the recession, under high pressure to deliver with fast turnaround solutions to smart phones with zero tolerance to defects, while at the same time growing the organization from ground zero. Being venture funded, there were additional pressures to be profitable as quickly as possible. All these translated to operational and delivery challenges.

PM Power Approach and Solution

Customer engaged PM Power to help in this organization building effort and establishing product development capabilities. PM Power helped the Customer in two major areas:

  • Organization Design: Defining a matrix based organization structure, roles and responsibilities and product development team structure, by involving the senior leaders of the organization, through facilitated sessions.
  • Agile Transformation: PM Power recommended the Agile approach to manage the quick turnaround solutions for the product and helped in developing that capability in the organization through:
    • Scrum workshops for Engineers and Scrum Masters (covering about 80 people).
    • Train the Trainer workshop on Scrum for the organization to build internal capacity for training.
    • ‘New Paradigms for Knowledge Era’ workshop to create proper mindset & culture for Agile environment.
    • Customizing Scrum methodology and artifacts for the organization.
    • Defining a Product Development process combining the best of both Gate Process (top-down waterfall process) and Scrum process (bottom-up iterative process).
    • Handholding the teams on implementation of Scrum in the projects.
Results

Within 6 weeks of start of engagement, the teams began liaising as a cohesive unit and started delivering releases in weekly iterations. Their Customers were surprised to see such deliveries from an organization started from zero-base just a couple of months back. Organization grew from 10 to 120 people within 1 year and delivered multiple product releases to Customers in Japan and US. Our joy was in seeing our Customer achieve such a rapid success in attaining their goals.