Data Analytics Enterprise Partners with Isos to Increase Agile Adoption, Standardize Practices & Streamline Jira
Our client
This international data analytics and monitoring enterprise helps companies solve problems in complex digital infrastructures. Today, the company is relied on by many of the world’s largest organizations to keep their mission-critical systems secure and reliable.
Challenge
This international data analytics and monitoring enterprise’s 20-plus teams in IT Services had not been provided specific guidance or training in determining their working practices, processes, and tools. Each team had different levels of maturity in terms of agile adoption and related practices, and was using different day-to-day processes. Their individual Jira Software projects were also configured in very different ways.
The enterprise’s IT Services teams had several multi-year roadmaps for “big bang” release projects, but the reliability of their go-live dates was questionable. There was also limited visibility into the actual capacity of the different teams, which made it challenging to manage roadblocks and predict delivery.
The company was seeking to leverage agile practices in IT to enable iterative delivery cycles and standardize reporting, with the goal of better understanding capacity and improving the predictability of their deliveries. As part of this, the enterprise wanted to standardize the way teams used Jira Software to increase the visibility of teamwork, improve cross-team collaboration, and enable quick resolution of roadblocks.
Solution
Isos Technology’s approach entailed coaching around agile best practices at the department and team levels, as well as providing guidance on how to configure and use the Atlassian tools to facilitate these practices.
Isos worked with the enterprise’s IT Services teams to develop a more focused delivery strategy, shifting the organization’s approach from long-term roadmaps with “big bang” releases to a more agile mindset of iterative deliveries providing incremental value.
This entailed facilitating conversations about how to break the work down into discrete, releasable epics. Isos then leveraged the necessary functionality and reports in Jira Software to help the teams visualize their delivery capacity.
Next, Isos provided individualized coaching to each of the 20-plus teams. Coaching was tailored toward each team’s level of agile maturity, and ensured that all teams had a similar, solid foundation in Scrum and Kanban.
Isos also made recommendations to the enterprise’s internal Atlassian admin team about how best to consistently structure processes and configure Jira Software projects, project requests, and Kanban boards, so all teams had the tools they needed to support the new processes and work in a standardized manner.
Results
- Improved connection between strategy, priorities, and work: Standardizing all work into Jira Software has now provided the enterprise’s IT Services teams with a clear view of each team’s work. Roadmap timelines have been shortened and are now connected to the actual capacity of Delivery Teams.
- Standardized processes increase collaboration: With all teams using standardized processes and working on a shared cadence, visibility into dependencies and blockers has improved. When one team has an ask of another, this enables them to have meaningful conversations around priorities and work collaboratively to achieve them.
- Increased visibility into capacity supports informed decision making: With all teams capturing their work in Jira Software in the same way, the enterprise’s IT Services teams can better understand their capacity to deliver. Now, when priorities shift or roadblocks occur, the company can see the impact of these changes and make informed decisions about next steps.
- A focused delivery strategy drives value: By shifting its release plan from multiple-quarter projects to shorter, iterative delivery increments, the enterprise’s IT Services teams have been able to respond faster to changing market demands, releasing new features and enhancements with shorter lead times.
- Long-lasting results for the entire organization: Throughout the project, and since wrapping up, the enterprise has coached and trained 26 Delivery Teams Across 10 Value Streams over 18 months, encompassing 330 hours of training. Standardization of Jira Software across all Delivery Teams has also helped to increase sprint planning effectiveness by 21%, and increased the visibility of technical debt by 16% across the organization.
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