Case Study: Fixing A Broken Effort

Delivering success

Synopsis

Hyrax revitalizes PTI’s organization, lowering costs, delivering product, and improving customer satisfaction in the challenging world of Fortune 100 legal work product software.

Hyrax Reinvigorates PTI

Fixing a Broken Global Development Effort

Hyrax was engaged to solve our client’s (PTI) stalled product development and customer service challenges. PTI is a leader in attorney work product reference software. After two years, the company was struggling to release its 2nd generation product. Deliveries were late, product quality and customer service were suffering, and the project was over budget.

Our solutions focused on improving customer satisfaction and internal process across the organization.

Fixing the Organization

Whole Teams Make a Difference

A key discovery was lack of stakeholder representation and interest throughout the development process. Hyrax focused in on two critical areas of organizational change:

• Involving all stakeholders
• Clarifying roles and accountability

This two-pronged approach tackled organizational problems leading to “silos” and a lack of accountability — in other words, each department felt it wasn’t responsible for the problems, and no department was stepping up to fix problems they couldn’t affect.

By bringing stakeholders from across the business to the table, every department became involved. After creating clear roles, process, and accountability on a departmental level, separate business units and individuals began to feel a vested interest and ownership again.

Fixing the Process

Delivering Reliability

The most sought after aspects of successful processes are repeatability and reliability. PTI lacked clear, defined processes as well as reliable execution.

Hyrax first worked closely with PTI’s professional services, customer support, and development departments to create workflows that fit well within the organization. Each department had its scope and responsibilities clearly defined.

The second step was implementing the process using appropriate tools. Through a combination of workflow, software, and training on the new process, each department began to operate reliably.

Fixing the Team

Involved People Care

PTI’s development group was wholly outsourced overseas, and business development was conducted locally. A tremendous disconnect between each group led to misunderstandings, inefficiency, and missed deliverables.

Hyrax’s guidance placed these problems foremost, ultimately eliminating the root cause through several programs:

• Onsite rotation of staff
• Colocation of key team members
• Improved communications
• Education programs

Outcome

Hyrax’s engagement reduced costs by $780,000 per year, improved customer satisfaction, and delivered major product upgrades on a regular 6-month schedule.

Q&A with the founder

Hyrax Internal LLC’s founder, Zacharias Beckman, talks about the PTI engagement and how Hyrax succeeded where others have failed.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in fixing Practice Technologies’ development process?

Integrating two completely independent organizations located halfway around the globe from one another is never easy. In this case, several years of baggage from misunderstandings came along with the project. With a new project, you start on a level playing field. Here we had to undo a lot of prior history.

What were some of the problems the company had been dealing with historically?

Each organization felt the other was making mistakes. The business unit couldn’t understand why development failed to meet its expectations. At the same time, development felt the business didn’t ask for the right things. If something went wrong, people jumped to conclusions. All of this was complicated by a foreign business model, language, culture, and a 13 hour time difference.

How did you solve the problem?

We set up a few different programs. The entire team in India went through several training workshops. Hyrax went to India to deliver the training and mentor the entire staff. We also set up a rotation program so that key staff would always be present in the United States, and a larger segment of staff would visit the US office for some time. This went a long way to bridge the gap between the two groups. It helped the developers get a better understanding of the business model; it helped the business understand the complexities of software development. Creating a personal connection made a huge difference as well.

Is this part of the “whole team” approach?

A “whole team” refers to involving all stakeholders in any given aspect of the project. The stakeholders may change from one meeting to another, but — the key is to make sure that everyone who cares about an outcome is somehow involved or at least represented. This means making sure the entire business is involved, from marketing, to sales, to customer support, to finance, to development. We put this concept into play vigorously, training staff on the importance of it but also putting in automation (software) that would keep the whole team idea alive.

What kinds of training programs did you implement?

We delivered both formal and informal training. The formal included classroom sessions and hands-on workshops covering software quality assurance, requirements management, and the Rational Scrum™ development process, which PTI partially implemented. The informal training included mentoring and making sure the team had options for challenge, growth, and upward mobility.

What kind of software — automation — did you put into play and how did it help solve the problem?

PTI had some informal systems in place, but they were ineffective. We built a business case for transitioning to a comprehensive solution. We chose Atlassian’s excellent JIRA and Confluence products for a few reasons: They are both highly customizable, very powerful with full-on workflow capabilities, and are web-based which is ideal for a distributed organization.

After collaborating with PTI to develop each team’s workflow processes, we automated them using Atlassian’s products. This meant customized workflow, and handling intake on customer support tickets, managing defect tracking, and supporting project planning, work breakdown, estimation, and task management. The entire system took about three months to fully implement.

The automation made things reliable. Issues stopped falling through the cracks. Everyone had full visibility into what was going on, which was key. Priorities were managed well. Development projections and quality assurance metrics became reliable. It was a critical turning point for the entire business.

So, that was a successful implementation. What tips would you give others attempting a similar project?

Don’t ever think outsourcing globally is simple, or cheap. You’ll save some money, but you’ll lose on efficiency. The trade-off for a small organization isn’t there — you need to have some mass in order to pull it off successfully.

Also, when the crunch comes — and it will — don’t take shortcuts that compromise quality assurance or tight control on requirements. In the long run, it’s never worth it.

About Zacharias J. Beckman

Mr. Zacharias J. Beckman has 25 years experience working with technology-focused clients from the Fortune 500, Government, and private and public sectors, including Xerox®, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles County Sheriff, NASA, and the Department of Defense. Mr. Beckman specializes in Global Project Management and Program Management, successfully addressing the challenges of outsourcing and distributed development. He is also a published author and has developed coursework for Cross Cultural Teams, Program Management, Project Management, Risk Analysis, Software Quality Assurance, Project Methodology and more, and runs the widely read Rational Scrum blog.

About Hyrax International LLC

Hyrax International LLC is your Global Project advisor. We address the challenges of outsourced projects and distributed teams, provide oversight, and make sure your project is done on time and on budget. On average our clients reduce their budget 40% with our best in class guidance, and we’ve never missed a deadline. Hyrax International LLC • http://www.HyraxLLC.com • 805-669-8493 • information@hyraxllc.com • 2629 Townsgate Road, # 235, Westlake Village, California 91361