Improving Collaboration
Overview & Challenge(s):
DEMDACO operated as a manufacturer and wholesaler for over 20 years and recently launched a D2C eCommerce channel built on wholesale processes and systems.
The Digital Marketing Team supported two product launches per year, each with 5,000+ SKUs, for two existing sites, and with the launch of D2C and the onset of COVID-19 a few months later, work became exponentially more difficult. Ways of working had to be faster with better communication and reduced manual steps.
The primary challenges included:
Absence of cross-team collaboration
Lack of a project management platform to centralize information
Leadership was not held accountable
Goal(s): Implement an inexpensive, easy-to-learn platform, train teams, and reset expectations for ways of working.
Strategy & Approach:
Created and presented an agile (Scrum) approach to the CEO for approval. Note: this was not a full rollout of Scrum, but an iteration intended to teach teams real-time techniques due to the rapid changes created by the pandemic. A full Scrum rollout would be evaluated post-pandemic.
Gained agreement for the IT Director to serve as the product owner and one member from each functional area to serve as "developers" while I filled the role of "Scrum Master" (using parenthesis because the approach was agile, but not following the official Scrum Guide).
Organized a kick-off meeting to communicate the goals, set expectations, and clearly define roles and responsibilities.
Rather than train teams on the entire Scrum process, we focused on the following:
Clear ownership and decision-making
Backlog process (how/what/why)
Sprints and the definition of done
Daily standups (Scrum meetings)
How communication would happen
Created a private Teams Channel for communicating, file sharing, and quick decision-making.
Reviewed budgets for cutting expenses to self-fund a centralized platform; sourced and selected the tool (Hive) in partnership with IT and Finance.
Followed the Scrum process, sharing progress with the Executive Leadership Team each week until the project was complete.
Results:
Hive was successfully rolled out company-wide within four months of selection (the goal was to complete in six months).
All existing work was centralized, creating easy access for every functional area (using role-based permissions).
We decreased the creative approval by nearly 50% with automated workflows and triggered reminders.
Date/time-stamped activities, notifications, and real-time visibility held teams accountable for completing work.
Including one SME from each functional area created cross-team advocates who educated others about how/where work intersected.
Customizable, real-time dashboards effectively reduced the time spent creating and presenting information to leadership.
Leaders were empowered to hold their teams accountable, using data to have (and document) performance conversations.
As I was leaving the company, the HR Team was evaluating the adoption of Scrum.