Multichoice: Agile Ways of Working

Introduction

At Deloitte, the Agile Lead played a pivotal role in the Digital Transformation Programme for Multichoice Group, a prominent player in the Telecommunications and Media industry. The company faced escalating competition from global OTT providers such as Netflix, which led to a steady decline in market share due to outdated processes and inflexible digital systems.

The Challenge

In response to these challenges, Multichoice Group aimed to redesign its processes to enhance agility and implement a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform, specifically Salesforce, to harness data and analytics for informed decision-making. As the programme progressed into its third iteration, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic compelled the team to trigger Business Continuity Plans. The Agile Lead was tasked with defining contingencies to adapt in-person collaboration and execution models to a remote working environment while maintaining alignment with delivery timelines and quality standards.

Additionally, managing diverse teams across various time zones necessitated that the Agile Ways of Work accommodate these complexities. Striking a balance between adhering to core Scrum principles while customising approaches for pragmatism became essential. The focus was on experiential learning over prescriptive theory, fostering an open and collaborative culture that encouraged debate on differing perspectives to determine practical solutions.

Objectives and Strategy

The Agile Lead was responsible for defining, iterating, and coaching the Agile Programme Ways of Work across all business, technology, and delivery teams. Key objectives included managing a programme team of approximately 150 individuals across six countries, with a focus on delivering Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) in three iterations. To achieve these objectives, a comprehensive strategy was implemented, encompassing the oversight of the programme workspace on Azure DevOps, establishing agile ceremonies, and tracking deliverables.

In addition, the role involved serving as the Quality Assurance (QA) lead, establishing, and implementing the QA strategy while monitoring test case execution by end users. Conducting agile ceremonies, including daily scrums of scrums, sprint planning, iteration planning sessions, and MVP demonstrations, were integral to the programme's success.

Implementation

Throughout the execution of each iteration, the Agile Ways of Work required continual adjustment to remain adaptable to the evolving nature of the team and deliverables. By progressively refining user stories and acceptance criteria, along with integrating the QA strategy to run concurrently with development and system integration testing (SIT), significant improvements in delivery times and product quality were observed. Standard agile metrics were employed to assess performance across teams, and performance dashboards were created in Azure DevOps to visualise execution data.

Results and Benefits

The iterative approach yielded substantial improvements in both delivery times and product quality. A pivotal success during the programme was the first completed subscription using the fully redesigned package subscription process and satellite decoder activation model on the Salesforce platform. By consistently refining processes, the team enhanced collaboration and responsiveness. The metrics collected illustrated improved performance, demonstrating a marked increase in deliverable quality and a reduced time-to-market for new features.

Conclusion

This experience honed leadership and facilitation skills, enriching understanding of agile methodologies and team dynamics. Valuable insights were gained into refining communications and addressing the strategic points that C-suite executives required to witness improvement, thereby fostering confidence in the transformation’s realisation of intended benefits. Furthermore, the importance of flexibility in frameworks to meet evolving needs and the value of integrating quality assurance early in the development process were recognised.

The digital transformation cultivated an agile culture within Multichoice Group, fostering a collaborative environment that encouraged continuous improvement. Enhancements to work-from-home strategies for agile delivery management proved particularly beneficial when dealing with multiple countries across various time zones and engaging team members with multi-disciplinary skills. The processes established during this programme have had a lasting impact, enabling the organisation to respond more effectively to market changes. A particularly memorable moment during this journey involved witnessing the team unite during a challenging iteration. Despite inherent pressures, small victories were celebrated, which not only strengthened team dynamics but also reinforced commitment to the agile principles that had been implemented.