How We Ushered a Public Sector Enterprise into the Digital Era through Agile Transformation
The Situation
A hybrid public sector enterprise in the US was constantly hearing from their workforce that products were always introduced as ideas, but nothing ever became of them in any reasonable amount of time. In 2017, they were still managing all their processes on paper.
The Task
It was clear that the methods used by the client were outdated. The main challenge was to differentiate between perceived and actual problems to be solved, and determine the technology and approach to be used for this particular client’s unique needs. A total digital and Agile transformation was necessary.
The Action / Approach
Normally, the client set discovery periods of several years. We convinced them to try something new and set a 3 month discovery period to determine the problem to be solved, and suitable technology available for the team’s use. At the end of discovery, we determined that Scrum would be suitable for
this case, and started two-week Sprints.
A feedback loop was created with end-users, allowing the product team to generate more needs-based user stories. This product team was also embedded in testing during the Sprints to reduce rework after the fact. The product team released new builds every 10 Sprints to keep pace with the
training time needed for the field to adopt new virtual work habits.
The Result
- The first version of the product was released within 6 months, providing the most critically necessary features. This reduced the time to delivery by at least 2.5 years.
- The workforce reported that the first two releases of the product reduced their work time by as much as 50%.
- Rework was reduced by 75% in just two releases.
- After the first two releases, 30% of the features were changed or removed. With the feedback loop, the feature sets increased, and in the fourth release, no features were deemed non-essential.
