Case Histories

Situation: A mid-sized insurance company viewed their sales-support software package as inadequate – everyone using it hated it, even though they has spent $6 million on developing it in-house.  As they launched an effort to develop a new sales package, they adopted “Agile” methods to do the development.  The Director-level business manager sponsoring the project called me in to help make sure that they didn’t waste another $6 million.

Solution: Working with the business managers in Sales & Market Development, I conducted seminars for the VP-level sponsors and separately for the business project managers to help them understand how Agile processes are different from their old way of doing development, and what the change means for them.  I did an assessment of the software development team in the IT department, providing feedback to the business sponsors and also coaching some of the development managers on the Agile transition.  I also investigated IT management and its resistance to the Agile processes and methods.

Result: The Agile methods launch went forward with great incremental success for one year.  After that, IT management made some counter-productive moves that limited the Agile team’s ability to operate well.  At the end, the business managers agreed that a new baseline for all future IT development had been established and proven better than what they had been using before.

Situation: The same mid-sized insurance company managed 7 lines of business using both internal and external-facing websites.  Even though they were spending $5 million per year on IT, frequent small projects for updates of content and of web page design were moving too slowly.  They decided to use Agile methods to speed things up.  The VP of e-Business called me to help make sure things improved.

Solution: An assessment of the IT-Business interactions showed many conflicts and a lot of finger-pointing.  I brought the whole implementation team of 12 people (from their 750 miles apart locations) together in one place for 2 days each month to work out what needed to be done.  Facilitating this team, I helped them recognize their common goals and make a list of actions to fix what didn’t work.

Separately, I interviewed the key managers in the IT organization to discover problems that were holding back efficient delivery of results.  These managers knew exactly what was wrong and what was to be done to get rid of wasted effort.  None of this involved “Agile” processes, simply normal good management.  Returning to the VP-e-Business, I reported on 7 key blockages to efficiency in the IT processes and management.

Result:  The IT-Business implementation team transformed itself (with only 3 months of facilitation) into an efficient, aligned team.  This allowed the key project managers on both the business and IT sides to develop a sane set of processes that delivered results in spite of the pressure.  The VP used the “key blockages” report to negotiate with the CIO for improvements in the IT organization and the support that he needed for e-business success.

Situation:  A computer hardware manufacturer developed a new product for the PC market.  Just as the product was being launched into manufacturing, the lead project engineer quit.  Meanwhile, with $25 million in backlog of orders, the production line was stopped due to a new bug that caused the product to shut down unexpectedly.

Solution:  I stepped in as interim project manager, immediately addressing the new bug.  Within 10 days working with key engineers, we diagnosed the problem and created a solution that allowed the factory to resume production.  Meanwhile, I set up a system to track bugs and bug-fixes in firmware for the product.  I also interviewed and helped to select a new manager to hire into the project manager position.

Result:  The product went on to become one of the best revenue producers for the company, opening up a new market in PCs.  The bug-tracking system became the company-wide standard for all projects.  The new project manager was successful and stayed with the company for over 10 years.

Situation: A computer hardware manufacturer launched a development project using new software language and tools.  6 months into the project, progress was slow and it did not appear that the project would succeed.

Solution: The VP of Engineering asked me to come in to co-manage the firmware development of this product.  I shared an office with the firmware manager and coached him on how to manage this sort of project.  Meanwhile, I discovered two team members who were either not contributing to the project or actively getting in the way of progress.

I co-managed the firmware team through the critical middle of the development, until steady progress was visible.  I also reported on other dysfunctions of the development team to the new program manager, who eventually removed the non-contributors.

Result:  The project completed and delivered a new class of product leading to increased sales.  The new software language and tools was proven successful.  And the company  learned to watch for certain types of team dysfunction in the future.

Situation: A computer hardware manufacturer was facing a deadline for launch just 3 weeks away, but the VP of Engineering was concerned that the development team was burned out, that the product wouldn’t be delivered to production, and that the product would not perform well.  He asked me if I could assure him that his concerns were not going to be realized.

Solution: In a one-week assessment of the team and the product, I reported to the VP of Engineering that the product would be on time, that the team was not burned out, and the product would be operate satisfactorily at launch.  However, I warned him that the product would never reach the companies goal for reliability (MTBF).

Result: The product was a success and the development team went on to make other successful products.

One year later, the former VP of Engineering, now CEO of the company, met me in a hallway and said, “How did you know, based on one week of assessment, that the product wouldn’t meet its reliability goal?”  I assured him that it was easy for someone with familiarity with firmware to recognize that the development team did not have enough time to do the usual rework to make the product more reliable.

Situation: A computer hardware manufacturer (where I was employed at the time) saw its markets become more and more “commodity” like, causing their margins to become thinner and thinner.  They decided to develop a long-term strategy to broaden their markets.

Solution: Following the process outlined in Prahalad & Hamel’s book, Competing for the Future, they launched two 8-person strategic planning teams.  The teams spent 9 weeks away from their regular jobs developing a vision of the world 10 years ahead, identifying plausible markets for the company in that future world, and then stepping back from that vision, proposing steps the company could take to move towards the vision.  I was one of the members of one of the teams.  In this team, I was both a contributor and a leader of internal team processes.

Result: Seeing the Internet wave coming, I and a Marketing counterpart from my team helped to launch a new division aimed at the Consumer Electronics industry.  I helped that division find initial customers (in the digital video recorder (DVR) business) and longer-term partners (including one of the big 4 world-wide consumer electronics companies).

Situation: A startup company in the consumer electronics business was experiencing friction between the VP of Engineering and his software development directors.  The COO was worried that the friction would compromise the product development process and also lead to loss of key contributors in software.

Solution: At the request of the COO, I came in and coached the VP of Engineering and two of his Directors on how to deal with each other.  I also addressed the conflict between Engineering and a co-founder who was nominally part of Marketing, but who consistently interfered with Engineering decisions.

Separately, I worked with several of the creative engineering and software people to identify key inventions to be selected for patenting.

Result: The company produced a series of successful products, becoming nationally known with their 5^th product, a pocket video camera.  Within 2 years, the company was acquired by a Fortune 500 company.