Background – Agile Implementation
ITDirections was engaged by one of the largest uniform rental and linen supply companies in North America with approximately $650M in annual sales, operating more than 115 production facilities and service centers throughout the United States and Canada, servicing over 150,000 customers each week. Previously, all software development projects were done with the waterfall methodology rather than agile.
ITDirections assisted the Client with education, coaching and implementation to adopt Agile scrum in their software development and customer experience improvement projects.
The Challenge – Broken Software Development Process
The Client was struggling to implement a software development methodology for large software projects. As they embarked on an effort to build their large commercial e-commerce and rental websites, they started to realize that they had limited experience doing software development and decided to implement Agile methods to improve their software development process.
The Solution – Agile Training, Coaching and Implementation
The Client’s development resources, business analysts, project managers, directors and senior technology members were trained in a two-day course. Then, team members went through an initial Proof-of-Concept (POC) to ensure they had a good understanding of Agile concepts. The multi-pronged approach included:
- Customized training
- One-on-one daily coaching
- Implementation of best practices
- Implementation of supporting software
- Implementation of Agile processes and rituals
- Work completion using collaboration and communication techniques
The Results – Software Development That Works
The benefits of the Client’s Agile implementation were significant. The POC was successful and the organization adopted Agile for all of its software development and implementation projects. The digital e-commerce websites, customer service portal and a windows tablet-based mobile apps were built successfully using best practices. These systems were mission-critical to improve external customer efficiencies, internal team member’s ability to report customer issues, and allowed customers to pay invoices online which significantly reduced collection time.
