Delivering an effective integration service to blue-chip company

The CIO was new into the role and wanted to set up an effective integration service for the large and highly distributed IT department. I was brought in to work with the existing team and deliver new processes. The team had been very effective at cataloguing their integration deliveries and developing a technical strategy. The problems they were facing were how to ensure that their outsource partners were delivering integration consistently for the right price. It was difficult to understand how much the integration cost because the processes for quoting for work were unclear. There was a lot of integration that was delivered outside the process as the service was perceived to be expensive and slow.

Develop better processes to make the costs visible and traceable. Deliver change so that the IT department would choose to use the integration service rather than delivering quick and dirty changes that were not supportable or sustainable.

Worked with the existing team to review current practices. Reviewed the budgeting and cost tracking processes to get to a true cost of the current service. Developed simpler processes that were easier to communicate. Developed a recruitment plan and helped recruit to the team.

The service costs were clearer and started to reduce significantly. Speed of delivery was slashed from 45 days on average to less than 10. Customers reported that the service delivered on time and to budget.