Case Study 1 – Global financial data provider
Challenge
This company is one of the world’s primary financial information suppliers and a leading multimedia news provider. The technology division employs some 4500 IT staff around the world, and has a development community of close to 2000 split between onshore, offshore and outsourced capability. After a sequence of poor quality product releases Nick was appointed as Global Head of Quality with an open brief to materially improve the quality of the company’s delivered products.Delivery
Initially Nick undertook a structured interview process to understand what business and IT perceived to be the root cause of the recent product release failures. In parallel with this he reviewed the QA and development process for all major development teams around the world.From these studies, the root cause became clear. A product release involved a large number of development teams around the world and, whilst each development team took responsibility for the quality of its constituent change, no-one was taking responsibility for the overall release.
Nick then proposed a major structural change to the organisation of Quality in which each release would have a quality organisation and process associated with it, with a representative assigned from each development team. A number of mandatory documents and checkpoint meetings were also proposed. Lastly a Quality governance organisation was proposed which put in place to ensure best practise and provide a fast escalation path for Quality issues.
This proposal was put to the board of the company and was approved, together with the headcount and budget necessary for its implementation
Nick then set about putting these proposals in place. Within six months the structure was operational and he managed the first six months of its operation, ensuring that projects that were indicating a Quality risk were recovered.
Lastly, Nick put in place succession planning and handed over management of the Global Quality function.
Benefits
With these elements in place, the company can obtain visibility and control of the quality being obtained from a development budget of approximately £180M, and a live project portfolio of some 200 major projects,.Since this function been in place, there has been no recurrence of the poor quality releases that prompted Nick’s appointment.
Case Study 2 – Online Product Development Company
Challenge
This technology company provides systems and data to the international online gambling industry. It is a highly regarded company in the industry with a strong order book for a pipeline of unique products. It was listed in the Sunday Times "Techtrak" index of fasted growing companies. However, the growth of the company stalled when the new product development on which the order pipeline depended ran into problems. After two unsuccessful re-organisations and two CIO appointments, all of which failed to bring any certainty to the development process, Nick was appointed with the remit to do whatever it took to bring the products to market. At this point, product development was running some 18 months behind the schedules promised to customers. To carry out this major change Nick was appointed to the main board and given responsibility for all technical functions within the company (both operational and development, including all internal systems) in the UK and the subsidiary office in Estonia.Delivery
Initially, Nick concentrated on correcting the obvious errors in the IT function. There are usually a number of quick fixes that can be put in place, and this company was no exception. This brought discipline back to the function, and gave the company some confidence in the delivery capability, although at this stage the capability was very low!Next, Nick appraised the organisation, processes and development methodology, taking into account best practise, modified by the particular needs of the organisation. In this case a bespoked implementation of the Agile development process was put in place, with a heavier emphasis than usual on customer communication to counteract the legacy of mistrust and misunderstanding. During this stage a number of poorly performing developers were exited, and new high quality resource brought in.
Lastly, Nick addressed the issue of embedding the necessary culture change, without which no change will stick. Nick clearly laid out the expected behaviour in terms of taking responsibility for code, customer service and timekeeping. Over a period of time and with Nick and the other senior managers taking a lead, the necessary behaviour became embedded, and the department is now a respected and professional function. A long way from where it had started. Lastly, Nick put in place succession planning and a managed departure
Outcome
The new products are now fully launched and generating revenue to the company.This revenue has been to the forecast level for the current financial year.
The transformation has been achieved with minimal increase to the IT cost centre.