The Problem

A public sector agency working within law enforcement struggled to match the governance required for their Agile software development projects. They were too reliant on Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint documents to communicate with stakeholders.  Data was held in disparate sources and often unstructured. Project tracking and reporting required dedicated PMO resources to collate information and form management information reporting packs manually.

The Work

TribusIT setup and enabled a digitised Risk management solution within the client’s existing Jira software solution. The online workflow solution allowed the capture and management of all RAID information (including Risks, Issues, Assumptions, Dependencies & Decisions), covering all the projects and programmes within their Portfolio. We built automated tools to allow the validation and migration of all RAID data from multiple existing spreadsheets and importing results into the new Jira-based solution. We migrated to Jira all Risk management information, including Risk Matrix and Risk Logs – including the easy ‘drag and drop’ updating of Impact & Likelihood scores.  Our team set up various bespoke Risk reporting dashboards to allow the easy identification of higher risks, late-running items or those showing a negative or worsening trend. We configured several standard Kanban and Scrum-based project templates that enabled their projects’ improved delivery by adopting the new Jira solution. We developed and set up a hierarchical structure for Portfolio and Programme management processes and controls using Portfolio for Jira (now called Advanced Roadmaps for Jira). We left in place automated reporting processes that reduced manual overheads and established a ‘single source of truth‘ for their project and associated RAID information. All information was made centrally available, including a complete audit history and change logs, clearly showing what details users changed and when (including old & new values). Various new reporting dashboards were created, which contained more advanced information levels than what was previously available. We created automated processing for the interim transition period that enabled the PMO team to export information easily back to excel in its old format directly from Jira Software.  This process allowed different groups to onboard when it suited their timetable and training levels. We demonstrated the tool’s benefits to the broader team in “show and tell” sessions and then built user stories in a collaborative approach. We configured the software based on these stories, supported its rollout with workshop-based training, knowledge base articles, detailed user guides and virtual “floor walking”.

Our Approach

As everyone involved at TribusIT is a certified Scrum master, we chose a Scrum-based approach for delivering these changes in association with the client’s team members.   This Agile approach was a new way of working for most of the client’s team members – so it was an excellent learning exercise. We used these same Jira and Confluence software tools to collaborate with the team throughout the project life cycle.  Again, practice using these tools for an actual project gave them first-hand experience of the benefits of working this way. The delivery spanned across several two-weekly Sprints where, as a team, we enabled remote ‘ceremonies’ in a virtual online fashion, including:
  • Sprint planning
  • Review user stories with planning-poker (story points)
  • Daily stand-ups
  • Twice-weekly product demonstrations (with client’s product owners)
  • Sprint reviews (whole team)
  • Sprint retrospectives (entire team)
  The Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog (including Story-point sizing) were captured and maintained using the Jira software project (and shared with the client team). User guides and instruction manuals were created, published and shared using Confluence. Other artefacts were also captured and transmitted using Confluence (including further details about requirements of product backlog items, release notes, meeting notes, retrospectives, etc.). Technical changes were demonstrated and tested on our development environment during the Sprints and subsequently deployed onto the client’s Pre-Production environment at the end of each Sprint cycle for regression testing. As we also provide support for the client’s production environment – we could also make the same changes within their Live environment (after user-acceptance testing) which again happened after the end of each sprint cycle.

The Results

TribusIT successfully launched the software on-time and within budget – and provided results of a quality that greatly exceeded the client’s expectations! Their project teams are now using this new centralised set up to deliver the programme and projects – while managing governance and providing reporting. The solution allowed automated tracking and reporting, which massively reduced manual overheads within their PMO and management teams. We are establishing a centralised means for capturing information to improve the consistency and quality of information. Advanced dashboards allowed for the real-time reporting of project information without the need for any manual intervention. In summary, TribusIT provided means for a single source of truth for project information to be established covering the following areas:
  • Programmes and portfolios trackable via a multi-level hierarchy.
  • Kanban/Scrum project templates for standard delivery of projects.
  • RAID information and reporting centralised.
  • Calculated field values and automation introduced to remove user error.
  • Automated means for importing/exporting RAID information within their Jira solution.
  • Provision of automated management information dashboards and real-time reporting.
 
“TribusIT helped us design, configure and implement programme and portfolio management that allowed us to focus on delivering value and outcomes rather than just projects. They delivered on time and budget and worked collaboratively with us throughout to achieve our aims.”
PDPaul Daunton Digital, Data and Technology Programme Manager