How this VP of Engineering was able to boost his teams' plan-to-done ratio from 47% to 75% using Homeric
Background
Company
Canadian Scale up (Name will be disclosed soon)
Industry
SaaS (Manufacturing)
Size of product group
90+
About the squads
Squad name: Team Cobra 🐍
Developers, testers and a PO
UX designer shared across 2-3 teams
Context
Low predictability of the team (below 50%)
Trust issues from management
Low team engagement
VP of engineering was given the objective to increase overall predictability
Hiring a coach had proven ineffective
Highlights
- ✅ Boost plan-to-done from 47% to 75%
- ✅ Enhanced team engagement and confidence
- ✅ Increased trust from management
- ✅ VP of engineering reached his personal target
Identifying the root causes of sub-performing delivery 🎯
The team was lacking visibility on their software delivery and what was causing their sub-performance.
Facing a significant challenge in terms of team predictability, the VP of Engineering found himself grappling with a problem that was affecting multiple layers of the organization, from sales to customer success.
This problem was particularly insidious because it undermined the team's ability to align on priorities effectively. It was as if the team had come to accept that their sprint plans were merely hopeful aspirations rather than achievable targets. This acceptance was not without its repercussions, resulting in diminished engagement levels and creating a perception that management lacked trust in the team's abilities.
The effects of this predicament necessitated a solution that could revive team morale and reinstate confidence in their deliverables.
Enters Homeric 👋
When Team Cobra 🐍 onboarded onto the Homeric platform, they connected their JIRA board and GitHub analytics.
Note: Customers control data is sent to Homeric by scoping the permissions of the token they use for Homeric. Homeric doesn't store any raw data coming from the customer's system and instead scans the data, creates various metrics and benchmarks, and dumps the raw data. All the metrics and benchmarks created are aggregated data at the team level with no project or personal data.
And...
In a few minutes (or was it a few seconds? 😉), Homeric provided the following assessment:
Acting on the identified root causes 🛠
Acknowledging and understanding a problem is a significant initial step towards its resolution.
By highlighting the problem, and explaining the key importance of predictability to the team, members began to pay more careful attention to their tasks' planning and execution. This awareness opened a gateway to discussions on how they could enhance their methods.
In addition, the VP of engineering and his team were provided with insights and feedback on key elements to improve in order to make quick improvements. All of the feedback was tailored to the team's specific data and context to ensure it was relevant and actionable.
As Team Cobra 🐍 took ownership of the issue, improvements were quickly noticeable. They found new motivation to drive change and improve their performance, reinforcing their overall engagement.
Generated impacts ✨
The Homeric platform supports Team Cobra 🐍 in two ways:
✅ Creating the assessment/benchmark to understand where to focus and how to improve.
✅ Generating personalized feedback and resources to take action and get results.
Using Homeric, Team Cobra 🐍 was able to understand the root causes of weaker continuous delivery practices, access to personalized feedback and resources to take action and, the most important, actually solve these issues to benefit from higher predictability and delivery performance.
Team confidence around delivery increased from 2.5/5 to 3.5/5 and the management as well as other departments were able to perceive and confirm the significant improvements.
