Challenge

Our client, a well-known high street fashion retailer, had defined a clear vision to become an omni channel, customer centric business able to respond faster and flexibly in an increasingly competitive retail landscape.  The business needed an IT department and technology infrastructure that would enable it to become a digital leader and adapt and respond rapidly to market trends and customer demand.  As a long term preferred partner, we were engaged to help our client develop and implement a new IT operating model that supported an agile way of working.

Approach

We used our extensive organizational change methodology to take the IT department on a transformational journey to becoming truly agile.  We began with a detailed ‘as-is’ analysis of processes, ways of working and the organization structure to identify current issues and build the case for change.

With a clear understanding of what we needed to fix, we began to define the Target Operating Model.  In the first instance, we built a transformational roadmap, identifying the required changes to their existing operating model to become agile.  Our first priority was to design and implement a new organization structure that supported agile ways of working. The key changes were:

• Reduction in silo-ed ways of working between IT and the business by identifying, onboarding and upskilling Product Owners for each business capability / function
• Reorganization of technical functions into cross-functional scrum teams (e.g. BAs, testers, developers)
• Recruitment of Scrum Masters to coach agile practices for each scrum team and coordinate the daily activities on IT projects
• Allocation of an experienced Portfolio Manager to own relationship with each business function lead (director level) to support prioritisation and management of their portfolio of potential projects from inception to launch
• Alignment of the Ecommerce team to the wider IT team to encourage collaboration

With the new organization structure in place, we set about developing the detailed operating model.  As the required changes became clear, we ran a change impact assessment to enable us to best plan and sequence delivery of the transformation roadmap.

The results of this analysis indicated that the change to agile required a comprehensive training and communications programme to support the implementation of the new operating model and ways of working.  In the first instance, we designed and delivered training on agile principles to both the IT department and the other impacted areas of the business.  To reinforce the training, team by team, we articulated what agile meant for them, how the change to an agile approach contributed the vision for the company and what was needed from them in order to make the change a success. This was supported by robust communications in the form of manager cascades, feedback gathering sessions and consultation period for the roles impacted by the change.

In addition to the new organization structure, we made a number of other key changes to the operating model:

• Design and definition of BAU and project/programme governance structures to ensure services levels are maintained and projects and programmes are delivered on time and to budget
• Introduction of the concept of ‘DevOps’ to technical teams to encourage collaborative working and reduce silos between development and service operations teams
• Development and launch of the internal change capability and a tailored agile change methodology to ensure the business is fully engaged and takes ownership for the adoption and sustainability of technology led change
• Development and launch of the agile PMO capability to drive best practice across project delivery and governance and manage the continuous prioritisation and evaluation of portfolio effort
• Re-engineering of the project and programme management approach and toolkit to reflect agile ways of working
• Implementation of agile tools to support agile project management, cloud infrastructure and collaborative working (e.g. JIRA, AWS, Confluence)
• Nurturing and reinforcement of the agile culture through innovative engagement methods to inspire and appeal to hearts and minds (innovation days to learn from start ups, bitesize training videos, hearts and minds surveys, agile forums drop in sessions)

Outcome

By managing and delivering the transformation into a sustainable agile organization structure, we ensured the IT department was on course to support the business in delivery its vision to become an omni-channel, customer centric business.

Positive outcomes included:

• Improved motivation in the IT team and the wider business. The company has been very vocal about how they are excited by the changes and the opportunities it offers;
• Improved project methodology and embedded PMO best practices enabling the company to move quickly on new strategic high value initiatives;
• Improved financial tracking and management that spending is focused on value to the business;
• Enhanced employee brand perception, position the company as a tech leader, resulting in the ability to attract new and better talent;
• The adoption and embedding of Change Management best practices and methods on IT projects, leading to improved ownership of technology led change and faster adoption