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BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY CONSULTING
Project Delivery and Organizational Change Management

Guide Ring Consulting - where your Solution Delivery Capabilities and Culture meet

Our Mission is to elevate our Client's Ability to Deliver their Business and Technology Strategy; by harmonizing their internal Partnerships | Processes | Tools we're able to unleash the full potential of their organization and help them to build a culture centered around the voice of their Customers and Stakeholders

Whether you're an Executive looking to strengthen your Organization's Strategic Delivery Capabilities or a Business Stakeholder, with a mandate to deliver large-scale Project Initiatives; Guide Ring Consulting is the Partner You Need

Good Delivery

Good Delivery is defined by traditional measures such as Release timing, Scope of Features Delivered and Quality of Code but, it also includes Alignment with other Business Objectives that help to differentiate your organization in the market:

Innovation driven by competitive forces
Compliance and Contractual Obligations
Implementation considerations - usability footprint, product familiarity and customer training requirements to name a few

Design your Organization, your Processes and your Technologies to serve the Business Needs of your Customers and Stakeholders, then your internal preferences and capabilities - Develop a clear understanding of Good Delivery before choosing a software development methodology

Method Malpractice

Oops... We Picked the Wrong Methodology

What Criteria Makes a Project Suitable for Waterfall or Agile?

If you're not asking this question you might be committing Methodology Malpractice

Agile is the Flavor!

An Ed Tech software company with clients all over the US provides a class room product that teachers and students use everyday. All have a firm grasp of the functionality and also the defects that impact their work

Once a year, the software company fixes about 20 to 30 percent of their defect backlog through a large remediation release

The users are happy with the fixes but struggle to consume them all at once and are somewhat frustrated that no new bugs will be fixed until the following year - this is a clear example where Agile is the better approach

WATERFALL IS THE WAY!

An Insurance company in the Pacific Northwest is required, by their state, to send communication with very specific language to each of its customers - failing to comply with this mandate could jeopardize their license to operate

Each year the state changes that language in the spring and requires the provider to begin communicating it in early fall - the company initiates a project each spring to update their content management system accordingly

This project has very specific timelines and a definitive scope which cannot be negotiated - the work represents all of the classic characteristics of a Waterfall project; yet the organization, in an attempt to transition to Agile, decides one year to manage the work incrementally which jeopardizes their ability to deliver a mandated scope within a mandated timeframe and ultimately their operating license

One Methodology to Rule Them All?

When asked about their approach to delivering technology backed strategy - Many Leaders state that their organization employs either Waterfall or Agile, but Rarely Both

Often, the decision to pick one or the other is not based on a business case, or review of the initiatives in their portfolio, but rather on what they believe aligns with the conventional wisdom of the day or 'fits their culture'

Since there are almost no strategic portfolios comprised of All Agile or All Waterfall projects, choosing one or the other is not a good approach for at least some, or maybe even all, of your project initiatives

Big Tech's Influence on Serving Customers

When You Don't Pay for the Products, the Relationship Changes

When it comes to functionality, release cadence, security measures, user agreements, etc. Products and Services are delivered on Provider terms, not yours... as long as the product remains compelling enough for you to continue to use it

You can argue whether or not this paradigm suits you when it comes to your social media interactions with Google / YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc., but what about your HR Systems, CRM cloud application, proprietary custom support systems - would this relationship model work?

In some instances this dynamic has spread beyond Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc., and persists across the culture of many corporate technology landscapes today

Solution Delivery vs SW Dev Methodology

It's Enterprise Solution Delivery that Connects You to Your Customers!

Solution Delivery vs Software Development Methodology

At Guide Ring, we make a distinction between Software Development Methodologies, such as Agile or Waterfall, and Solution Delivery - they're often conflated, but it helps to think of Methodologies as just one component of your Solution Delivery Approach

In some Organizations Methodologies have become the driving force behind the connection between your products and your customers... this process unfortunately turns that critical relationship into an engineering framework and can sideline critical voices in your organization such as Marketing & Sales, Financial | Legal | Risk Management, Operations and representatives for the Voice of the Customer

The Solution Delivery Process is a whole-of-organization approach that leverages the key partnerships in your organization to determine the best approach for delivering each initiative in your strategic portfolio

It recognizes that each initiative is unique and seeks to evaluate specific business objectives, elasticity of scope, timelines and implementation considerations like training requirements and and specific market drivers. Solution Delivery is agnostic toward any specific software development methodology - only seeking best fit and customization where appropriate

Software Development Methodologies are engineering frameworks designed to guide the process of creating, testing and deploying software. Traditionally, like many other engineering disciplines; scope, timing and implementation details were driven by end users or those who represented them.

In recent years, with the advent of Agile, the purview of the technology teams has expanded beyond engineering activities, seeking to guide the scope and delivery cadence of the products they produce for customers. It can be beneficial for engineers to control the pace of their work, the question remains - Is it beneficial for your customers?

We're looking for Bold Leaders to Partner with Us!

Whether it's a Mission Critical Project that must succeed or you've committed to leveling up your long term Delivery Capabilities, let's work together to...

Empower the People you've hired to represent your Strategy, your Market Presence and The Voice of Your Customer
Formulate Strong Business Stakeholder and Technology Partnerships to work on behalf of your Customers
Broaden your Solution Delivery Capabilities
Develop a reusable framework to ensure you employ the Right Methodology for all of your strategy
Prioritize Your Customers, Constituents and Stakeholders
DELIVER YOUR BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY

BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY CONSULTING Project Delivery and Organizational Change Management

Oops... We Picked the Wrong Methodology

Solution Delivery vs Software Development Methodology

BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY CONSULTING
Project Delivery and Organizational Change Management