Rubric Assignment

Challenge

We were assigned to launch a new revenue cannel in the Company, an online cannel. I was  pretty challenging at first glance due to the culture and values of the company, pretty  traditional and always very hesitant to anything that sounds online, digital, etc.

Our biggest challenge was not only to successfully implement and online channel but also  prove the company (top managers, board of directors, etc) that these new projects were very  relevant to start doing projects with a different approach to we used to do.

Selection

To accomplish the project we enter in an unknown environment using tools and approaches  that we have never used before. In our case, we use a combination of tools such as  visualization by drawing different scenarios in with the customer persona was at the center,  we use storytelling to give colour to many ideas that seems to be isolated but using narratives  seems to be much clearer to understand witch path we should take, or at least to clarify it, and  we had to use a much more dynamic approach of project management, like agyle or scrum,  pretty novel to our project management conception.

Application

As we noticed that there were too many new things and approaches, we decided to be  supported by a third party expert, just to guide us not to do the job. Internally we organized a  cross functional team, teamed up by people from most departments, finance, marketing, sales,  operations, etc by with the prerequisite that any member to take part should be open minded,  with a can-do attitude, very flexible to changing, and with no fear to fail.

Ones we defined the internal and external team we started to work with current customers of  the organization, but we also searched for non-customers of the organization to get more  insights far beyond our traditional customers.

Then, we set up workshops to define what kind of experience should be valuable for them  using an online channel to be in touch with the company, and at this point is when we used  storytelling and visualization mapping to describe the potential customer journey and different  alternatives we could approach.

Insight and Approach

The most valuable insight was all the feedback and information you get directly from the  people who are your potential customers, rather than working using internal information and  then going to the market to get insight (our traditional project management approach), we did  the other way around, going out to market to get information and then adapting it to our  circumstances.

Another lesson learnt is that when you work directly with the customers is a more iterative  and more agyle way of working, because this relation is much more dynamic so agyle and  scrum approaches fit well.

But the most interesting thing and surprising insight is that we should not underestimate the  importance of the values and culture when you accomplish a change in the way you manage a  project. We have to be very careful if you want to be very disruptive or innovative with your  approach and the company is not fully prepared, at least, top managers and boards, because  that could end up in failing the project because strategy and culture are not aligned.

One of the most basics when you are facing a strategic project is that “Culture eats strategy for  breakfast” so be pretty sure, and if not stop the project, if both aspects are not fully aligned,  people is who is going to grade your project so take the importance they have.

We are still working in this project as an iterative mode and I was a U-turn in the way we  manage projects nowadays in the company.

Thank you

