About the client:
A global leader headquartered in the United States; the client delivers optical and routing systems alongside advanced automation software. Their expertise spans the design and production of network infrastructure, including management systems and automation technologies, for an international market.
Challenges:
During the earlier phases of managing customer projects, the client found that all team members, despite their skill set, are overutilized by between 120% and 130%. This has impacts on several things, including:
- The overall workflow
- The projects and releases deliverables
- The level of quality outcome
Based on the mentioned above, there was a route cause analysis done to stand on the cause of the extra workload that created those pain points, and the results highlighted that:
- There was no dedicated technical skill set specification assigned.
- There were no clear timelines for projects and releases deliverables because of the extra workload.
Solutions:
The PMO team at FlairsTech PMO ran a series of deep dive workshops with the technical teams and the customer upper management, and the outcome came out in a shape of main 3 parts:
Part One: Organizing Roles and Responsibilities:
It was clear that team members lacked clarity about who was responsible for what and when. To address this, the first step was to create a clear RACI matrix to define roles and responsibilities.
This helped us develop a well-structured task list for the Implementation and Operation team, clearly separating their operational duties from development tasks.
Part Two: Live Customers Support Process
There was no defined process for coordinating the work between the Development and Support teams. Also, customers under maintenance contracts were not consistently using the official customer portal to report technical issues and requests; instead, many were sending them via email, leading to disorganized communication.
To address these issues, the team took the following steps:
- Established a clear, documented process, approved by all relevant stakeholders, to define time allocation and responsibilities.
- Created instructional videos and user guides to walk customers through how to use the ticketing portal to submit and track their support requests until resolution.
Part Three: Solving Over Utilization
By implementing the actions outlined in the previous sections, the FlairsTech team directly addressed the overall utilization issue. They eliminated scope creeps and established a well-defined process with clear dependencies and timelines.
Impact:
This resulted in several achievements, including the following:
- 100% success rate projects delivery within published timelines
- 75% success rate in development releases
- Team members utilization reduced below 90%