Transforming ICT Service Delivery through Lean

Transforming ICT Service Delivery throug...

The success of any ICT Service Delivery project hinges on how fast we can identify the problems, drill down to the root causes and continuously work towards improving upon them. The transformation story of a large ICT project at Ericsson is a classic example of one such successful engagement. It is a case study on how Lean Thinking can trigger a completely different mindset thereby bringing in a change in attitude and culture. This Application Development & Maintenance project was technically challenging and required 32 different skills across 9 functional areas from...
Service Desk – VOC: the heart of Lean in IT using Oobeya to lead change

Service Desk – VOC: the heart of Lean in...

OobeyaIT – APTiTUDE at the Service Desk How did a Service Desk help lead the change of culture and improvement within a financial services organisation? The problem: IT management had changed from a service to project culture so CREATE side did not talk to the run side until to late. So the Service Desk was repeatedly solving things, performing unneeded tasks, had poor KPIs and tools, and higher costs. One year later and we were the Face-of-IT with measurable days saved in tasks, 80% satisfaction improvement, accelerated request fulfilment, happier staff and gave more...
Improve software development speed beyond your customer’s dreams

Improve software development speed beyon...

Until the end of 2011, Theodo was a classic software consulting company proposing fixed-fee projects in waterfalls methods. During 2012 and 2013, we introduced the principles of agility and lean both in our core business activity and in our organisation as a company. And to say the least, we had some outstanding results which we are happy to share. Some of the key results presented: lead time on projects, client satisfaction, operational margin. For each indicator, I will describe what we did, what actually did not work … and of course what worked. ...
Lean and ITIL: reaching to the (hidden face of) the moon

Lean and ITIL: reaching to the (hidden f...

ITILv2 certifies people, not organizations. Yet it’s a library of good practices that organizations are supposed to follow (or even be certified on under ISO 20,000). So, with predefined processes as a North Star to reach for, it’s very attractive to wanting to use Lean to improve them. Yet, when you first grasp the situation, you soon discover that the shiny, fixed, paper Moon map is nowhere to be found in reality. The further you look, the more you understand that there’s something else to that, and that you need to go on the other side of it to discover what’s...
From concept to social impact (and cash): a lean startup in the financial world

From concept to social impact (and cash)...

We developped and launched an innovative crowdfunding platform based on 0% loans within 6 months time. hellomerci.com, borrow from those who care, helps people with personal or entrepreneurial projects get loans and energy from their community and the people. How a 4-people team has built and is now running such a complex system? How we managed (and sometimes failed) to connect a highly productive team with a much slower external environment? What are the cultural conflicts that arise when people with a “minimum marketable feature” vision meet people with an...
From push to pull in IT: learning to create value for users is not a long, quiet river

From push to pull in IT: learning to cre...

Pushing tools to users and complaining that they didn’t use them was easy enough. But when we started asking ourselves whether we were solving the right problems, and how to create value and measure this value creation, it turned out to be a rough path. Learn from Faurecia IT’s experience on this matter, and how IT can progressively move away from being a commodity provider to become a business partner. Faurecia is the 6th automotive equipment supplier worldwide and IT has to support Just in Time plants, Product launches, Month end closes, Purchasing processes...