Get better customer-oriented IT solutions – faster

The customer's business is based on a growing number of IT solutions, which ensure both ongoing contact and information for the customers, but which also support acute situations with breakdowns of machines and errors that must be corrected . At the same time, it is business-critical that the IT infrastructure ensures that the many operating IT solutions can exchange data in a secure environment, so that the picture of the individual customer is complete.

The demands for new solutions are increasing and come from both customers and the business. This means that the number of new projects is growing, which increases complexity and the need for an overview.

The team that implements and maintains changes to the IT infrastructure in the company was thus under pressure. The number of employees in the team had grown from 3 to 11 in a short time, and this meant that the established processes, roles and workflows were no longer sufficient in a busy everyday life with many tasks. The atmosphere in the team suffered from the great work pressure, and this had a negative impact on both motivation and absence due to sickness.

In short, the increased number of tasks called for a reassessment and definition of both roles and responsibilities – and not least new, well-defined prioritization and planning processes that involve the employees in the team as well as the projects that deliver tasks to the team.

The company therefore initiated a change project with an overarching goal: A good infrastructure solution that fulfills the needs from the business as well a good sense of well-being in the team.

The overall goal was further detailed in three specific tasks:

• Establishment and implementation of collaboration models, processes and agreements between the team, projects and suppliers
• Establishment and implementation of work processes that ensure prioritization of tasks and adaptation of workload for employees
• Ensuring a good working environment for the employees in the team

The team's work in the change project was based on a list of success criteria that the team defined at the start of the process. The success criteria set out a common direction and also constituted a decision-making basis because they made it easy to assess whether one or the other solution was appropriate.

The project work took place, among other things, in workshops, where the team worked with both role descriptions and breaking down goals into tasks. The work process of defining roles and internal interfaces in the project was the first step to better internal cohesion, and the clearly defined roles and processes help to create a calm, structured and stable working environment, where time is properly spent on the right things.

The breakdown of goals was also an important element of the project: The common understanding of how the individual elements in daily operations are necessary to achieve the goals adds an overall perspective to the daily tasks, which become more relevant, involving, and motivating.

In relation to ongoing prioritization and structuring of the tasks, several different elements were included in an overall solution:

• Establishment of a 'Product Owner' role, whose responsibility is to supervise and maintain communication with the running projects
• Execution of 2-week sprints, which also involve planning and prioritizing tasks
• Implementation of the task management system Jira , which had already been purchased for the team

The team now has a unified solution that consists of a model for and tools to handle

• how the team works best
• how tasks are prioritized and structured
• how the collaboration with projects, suppliers must work

The team's own work in establishing the solution has itself become part of the result: The many dialogues about both roles, responsibilities, goals, and perspectives have strengthened the cohesion and common understanding in the team - something that provides both motivation and inspiration in daily work.

The team, which has grown explosively due to an increasing need, now has a calm atmosphere, a robust structure and new motivation. The future prospects are bright: the team can grow because frameworks, processes and systems are now scalable and easily support both increases in the number of tasks and new colleagues.

Seen from an overall business perspective, the project's results mean that the IT infrastructure is able to meet the demands of new customer-oriented solutions faster and more flexibly. And the company will benefit from the scalability that allows the business to keep up with the rapid digitization of solutions for customers.

kaastrup|andersen contributed with an experienced consultant, who at the same time drew on her background in kaastrup|andersen, so the project came to fruition.