Ali Zarei Reflection – Learning launch

Challenge & Selection

I was appointed to assist the Management to get an IT project back to the track. The project aims to  deliver an IT tool to support financing activity for several business lines in many regions involving 43  countries. The project has been started 3 years ago, and by now, is entering a crisis mode as the team is  struggling to deliver and finalise the project. The costs are steadily growing, and the end date is  uncertain. The project partially delivered some functionalities. The end-users are not satisfied and are  reluctant to adopt the new tool, they keep using manual processes or existing tools that are supposed to  be decommissioned. My role is to identify and implement a solution to get out of this situation.

Based on the preliminary discussions with various stakeholders, it was obvious that the project suffers  from "tunnel effects" and end-users un-satisfaction, I decide to use the learning launch as it will bring  visibility to the users. They can see quickly what the tool looks like and they interact with IT team.

Application

The starting point was to identify the roots of the crisis, what is behind the "tunnel effect" and the un- satisfaction of users. Based on "what is" technics: first, I gathered all data available on the project  documentation. Second, I prepared 3 types of interviews forms, one for the project team, one for the  end-users (clients) and one for the management.

The "what is" phase allowed to find out the following root causes:

1- The requirements have been amended several times, the project team adjusted the roadmap

involving costs increase and planning extensions

2- The end users (clients) are not appropriately represented in the project governance, some

business lines are absent, so their needs are not captured

3- The tool reached a degree of complexity that any change requires significant time and money

Then, we organised an offsite (1 day) involving project team managers and end-user's representatives.  It was the first time in 3 years that all stakeholders are gathered. We discussed the main findings of the  previous phase and asked each stakeholder to envisage what will be the ideal tool for him. The main  outcomes:

(a) the end-users want visibility (no tunnel effect) and simplicity (break complexity)  (b) the project team wants stable requirements committed by all business lines

The decision was made to build a learning launch initiative in 2 months' time. The initiative was  conducted by a core representative team including IT, end users and operations. A set of common  requirements was established and committed. The objective was to implement a tool for financing files  validated at local level. To break complexity factors, the tool will serve 2 main functionalities:  documents storage and files status management.

The IT platform was replaced by an "on the shelf IT tool" to minimise customisation. The working mode  was also changed to involve Agile interactions and strong governance.

A business line present in 2 countries was chosen to use the new tool for their financing activity. They  were satisfied by the new tool. The users find the tool user friendly, they divide their file processing  time by 2 and they are able to know the financing file status with one click.

Insight & approach

Two elements are key in this approach, (1) gathering all stakeholders and making them discuss and share  the problems and the solutions, (2) adopting the learning launch showing concrete results reinsuring the  end-users and bringing confidence to IT team.

All these elements were used to build a case for change and propose the abandon of the old project and  start a new project with a roadmap of 12 months and a reasonable budget. The roadmap was based on  the scale up of the 2 main functionalities built in the learning launch, split in 2 waves and 2 deliveries  each 6 months. A pragmatic approach was introduced to manage perimeter changes: any add on should  be coupled with a take off a lower priority feature. So, the waves weight will remain stable to keep the  budget and planning on the track.

The case for change was validated by the high-level management and the new project was started by  scaling up the learning launch tool.

