IT and IS Case study

Unleash Team strongly believes in customer data and information

confidentiality.

All the information used in this case study has been studied and

approved by the end client and does not divulge any information

which did not receive approval of the client’s executive department.

Context and the settingA medium sized IT and ITES organization based out of HiTech City,

Hyderabad mostly servicing clients based out of US follows CMM

standards, employing about 4000 members in their Hyderabad

office in addition to another 3000 members in the Gurgaon office.

The work involves several ERP projects based on huge databases

and web based e-commerce technologies. Requirements by the

customers are usually agreed in advance and executed as per the

needs.

Context and the settingMany of the projects are multi-year fixed price contracts and are

executed using the work flow tools developed in house, which

consists of change control systems and tracking mechanisms.

While changes are common and have always been accommodated

to ensure customer satisfaction, they have started becoming more

frequent along with price erosion due to competition to retain

existing contracts.

While efficiency improvements are happening continuously the

changes, specially towards the later part of project are increasing

the costs tremendously.

Context and the settingThe organization has decided to follow Agile practices to better deal

with changes and few projects have adopted Scrum methodology

for projects execution. This seemed to have improved the ability to

work more efficiently with respect to changes, but the CMM

standards proved difficult to follow and Audits have pointed out

many discrepancies in the systems which need to be addressed

urgently. Specially the documentation of meeting notes and work

flow changes with tracking needed better methods.

Various tracking techniques like mobile camera pictures etc were

done to meet CMMI standards in the interim. The scrum practices

like planning and retrospective were manually planned on physical

calendars which had to be done manually for different projects.

Problem StatementA solution was urgently required which would allow the organization

to continue following the internally developed work flow systems for

projects execution and allow a few teams to adopt Agile practices.

Due to the nature of Industry and competition involved, the tools

have to be CMMI compliant and be able to integrate with the

existing work flow systems. Preference is for systems which allow

greater automation of various projects and work with SAP systems

already in place in the organization.

Solution with “Unleash”Unleash is a complete project management system which has tools

for change controls, waterfall and Agile project management. The

tools is CMMI level 3 complaint with Audit trails and automated

mechanisms for creation of road maps, release schedules, iteration

planning, review and retrospective schedules defined and assigned

to the individual team member calendars. A work dashboard to

manage portfolios, programs and “episodic events” is available.

Since the tools are based on cloud, it is easy to integrate and has

the ability to synchronize with SAP systems by automated reading

of excel files generated by SAP through scripts which run in

automated mode every midnight.

Solution MethodologyThe following solution methodology was followed for integration of

“Unleash” into the client’s PMIS already in place, managed by PMO.

Analyze SuggestImplemen

tAdjust

Requirements

are gathered.

Systems

analysis.

PMIS are

studied.

Proposal

provided

including

consulting and

training

schedules

Feedback

received and

proposal

finalized

A team of 2

senior

managers and

4 dedicated

software

engineers

allocated to

customize

“Unleash” core

modules using

Agile practices

The software

was adjusted as

needed after the

implementation

along with

completion of

team training.

Lessons Learned• It was realized that the implementation of solution was a challenge

but the biggest challenge was a lack of focus on “change

management” required for the team to adopt to new environment.

• The project management trainings provided have gone a long way in

helping team members adopt the new systems. Many members had a

lack of awareness of Agile methodologies and had persisted with

usage of command and control systems. These were addressed as a

part of change management and were realized to be a key aspect of

ultimate client success.

Data Concerns, Contracts and solution

The customer has agreed to have our system be implemented on

their servers with a two year contract to have any changes be made

by our team.

The contract can be renewed after two years with an option to

completely buy the source code, for in-house customization by the

customers IT teams.