Agility

Agile methodologies bring significant benefits to project management, in particular for transformation and product development, whether it is software/digital solutions or industrial product

… but some pitfalls can jeopardize their efficiency, thus a few Key Success Factors must be secured upfront.

CYLAD’s teams master several agile and lean-based methodologies with around 20 consultants trained and certified Scrum, SaFe and VPM (Visual Performance Management) inspired from lean best practices.

Our core beliefs on Agile:

Typical business benefits brought by the implementation of agility

Client feedback

“Throughout the working relationship, CYLAD was able to show flexibility in order to adapt best to the variations of our context and needs.“

Head of Methods & Tools in the Aviation Industry

CLIENT CASES

Implementation of Agile product development IN AN AERONAUTIC START-UP

Digital Transformation of a function in SaFe mode

Improvement Plan to develop agility within its product development process

Definition and implementation of an integrated project management solution (schedule, workload and cost)

CONTEXT

Oversized steering routines
Instability of the short-term product development plan with limited development capacity

PROJECT APPROACH

Diagnosis of development and corporate practices / organization / routine
Implementation of Agile methodology for the Product development team:
- Agile organization (Product Owner / Project Manager) with a revised PBS as the basis of an Agile organization
- Agile practices for development (backlog, sprint planning, system demo)
- Agile routines (e.g. PI Planning, Sprint, Weekly dev …)
Organization of a PI Planning with clarification of priorities / work plan for the coming semester and validation (based on development capacity)
Redefinition of Corporate governance routines (focus on the bare essentials for information sharing and escalation of problems)

RESULTS / FINDINGS

Clarified, shared and realistic development work plan
Robust delivery in line with planning
Reduction of time spent in corporate meetings
Team’s adoption & involvement

CONTEXT

In the new digital-driven world, IT has become a strategic asset, requiring IM to transform and enable the company to become digitally-powered:
- Enhancing New Digital capabilities
- Fostering Agile ways of Working
- Focusing on Value to Business

PROJECT APPROACH

Support Central Platform in Value management
- Value Assessment guidelines
Business Case for Digital Foundations
- KPIs definition and Cockpit definition
Support IT Financial Management
- Controlling processes definition in new transformed context
TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) – processes & tool
- Cloud impact on Controlling
Participation in agile iterations punctuated by monthly 1-day workshops and collection of feedbacks from sponsors every 12 weeks

RESULTS / FINDINGS

Materialize expected savings (qualitative and quantitative)
Stakeholders buy-in and impacted actors commitment, in a difficult context
New ways of working adapted to new context
Total Cost of Ownership as new reference for budget model and charge back

CONTEXT

Medium size company wants to launch an ‘Agility Improvement Plan’ pilot for new products development within an Engineering site of 300 FTEs
Engineering pilot team is made up of 50 FTEs and is in charge of a portfolio of ~ 6 new products development
Objectives are to secure engineering projects targets in terms of cost, lead-time and quality and re-balance effort from market pull projects to innovation projects

PROJECT APPROACH

1 month-diagnosis phase of existing practices (35 people interviewed within all functions)
Definition of an Improvement Plan made of 10 ‘streams’ structured into 3 dimensions (organization & governance ; processes & tools ; change management)
‘To Be state’ co construction with operational teams (workshops format)
Implementation of the Improvement Plan supported by a Change Management Plan (communication & trainings)

RESULTS / FINDINGS

Improved project management basics practices as a base to further secure shortcuts and move towards a customer-centric product development process
Secured cost, time to market and quality for new products development

CONTEXT

Improve portfolio and project management for new product development (reduce time to market, anticipate workload and better manage development costs)
Switch from pure growth-oriented strategy to efficiency and performance

PROJECT APPROACH

Upfront framing for project plan definition
Support to the project leader upskilling and overall project steering (stakeholders and risk management, drumbeat…)
Phase 1 : schedule and workload
- Definition of scheduling and steering rules and functional design for the project management tool using agile methodology
- Optimization of product development processes (project schedule) and modelling of related workload

Phase 2 : costs
- Development of costs cartography and modelling of forecast to be integrated in standard planning
- Definition of governance to steer project costs and budget for all functions (budget / forecast / actuals)
- Definition and implementation of the change management plan to secure adoption and buy-in from stakeholders

RESULTS / FINDINGS

Improved, standardized & sustained portfolio management via a tool with reinforced steering & decision making
Reduced Time-To-Market, steering of workload/capacity matching and development costs

Our agile Experts

Marie Decroix

Partner / France

Toulouse

Laurence Massat

Partner / France

Toulouse

Patrick Sage

Partner / France

Toulouse

Nicolas Comte

Principal

Toulouse

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Last publications

Point of view

From Capex to Opex – The Art of Recurring Revenue Business Models in Industrial B2B