Late-Stage Security Startup Transforms Operating Model

The Setup

A newly established Infrastructure and Network Security company leveraged an initial prototype to gain funding and grow the company quickly. With their rapid growth and focus on time to market, they stacked up a lot of tech debt. With a recommendation from one of their developers, they engaged Sketch to help bring Agile into their fast-paced environment so they could develop at a sustainable pace and improve predictability.

The Challenge

Growing a company quickly is one of the
best problems you can have, but only
if you have the right tools in place. Our
client had many challenges in their way
which included:

The team did not understand the application to a degree that they needed to
The Product Owner’s priorities were continuously shifting
Stories were being planned, but they only had a 55% chance of being completed
They had 6 developers working on different parts of the application at different times which lead to a lack of testability and feedback
The team was getting work done, but the software was rarely in a shippable state

The Solution

Sketch started by delivering a 2-day Agile Bootcamp, followed by a high-touch coaching engagement that would help them improve their ceremonies, finalize team roles and responsibilities, and measure goals until a level of predictability and scope churn were established. During this time, Sketch focused on:

Pairing and internal team coaching to set goals
Facilitating interpersonal and team discussion to keep executives caught up with team updates
Outcome focused story mapping
Capacity planning and prioritization to understand the applications
Keeping product owner priorities consistent and protecting the sprint so that plans only changed if necessary.

Allowing these new plans to be put into place would help the team in both the short and long term.

The Results

Once the team was able to spend more time in their codebase, light bulbs went off. With Sketch’s help, the team began to focus on the size and value of their stories. Learning how to vertically slice their stories resulted in more realistic and consistent estimations. Roles became more defined, which allowed them to know where they needed to get involved within the team. The product owner began to rely on their team to carry out the plans of each sprint, and they finally took an honest look at how much tech debt they had accrued and took steps to reduce it instead of hoping it would work itself out. Bringing in an agile framework and reworking the structure of the team allowed for new projects to be carried out with greater ease.

Feedback from the client

“Our coach from Sketch did a great job bringing our team up to speed on the tactics, techniques, and processes necessary to make an agile transformation. He was a personal confidant during this time and helped coach us through a typically difficult transition. I would highly recommend not only him, but Sketch in an agile transformation.””

–Chief of Staff

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