Defining & Delivering An Agile Project Process
Epiq Solutions
Services
Agile Coaching
Process Definition
Change Management
Software Delivery Management
The Challenge
Epiq Solutions designs and develops state-of-the-art radios and sensing products for some of today’s most important government and commercial organizations. Their leading software-defined radio (SDR) solutions have made them a trusted partner for years. But with continued success, came new challenges: as they won larger contracts, the projects became more complex, and the gaps in their software delivery process started to become more apparent.
I was brought in initially to achieve three key goals:
Stabilize and execute on a key software products’ delivery roadmaps
Pilot Agile practices with the software team
Lay the groundwork for Project Management hires to join the Epiq team
A New Software Delivery Process
I began by using the best tool in my consulting toolbox: listening. I spent the first few weeks performing an initial process audit. I met everyone on the team one-on-one, got to understand the current process and pain points, and documented my findings.
From there, I used my Design Thinking experience to map the current process, and then identify Insights and Opportunities, which I presented back to leadership and the team itself.
Once I got buy-in on those opportunities, I worked with the team to co-create an Agile process to pilot - it was important to combine the core tenets of Agile with the mostly waterfall experience of the engineering team in a way that felt accessible and additive, rather than just a different set of meeting to slow down work.
At the end of the first quarter of this pilot, the team jumped from delivering less than 50% of their planned work to over 90% delivery and clear visibility into their roadmap.
“The work you’ve done has been so profoundly transformative for our team and our business, it’s hard to compare pre-Josh to post-Josh.”
Gary S.
Vice President of Product
Epiq Solutions
A Tooling & Reporting Overhaul
As a fast-growing company, Epiq identified the need to start having consistent cross-team process. I helped implement standardization of not just project tooling (Jira, Confluence, time tracking), but also the foundational work of defining project terminology and the way the teams talked about their work. By speaking a common language about how we worked, it made it easier to plan and execute on time and with minimal rework. (Though we all had to be careful about being clear between “Epiq” the company and “epic” the Jira issue type!)
On a company-wide level, I implemented easily digestible roadmap reporting and contributed to an overhaul of quarterly planning practices.
Empowering The People
Part of the challenge of implementing a more mature software delivery process was the fact that Epiq needed to redefine the role of Project Management within the company. I took on the role as a Senior Project Manager on two key software teams to help demonstrate the value of the role. I helped empower the existing PMs to have a seat at the project leadership table, while also coaching the engineering team on how Agile allows them to have more decision making power and agency.
At the start of my contract, Epiq had one other Project Manager. By the time I finished my contract 15 months later, I was able to support a new Director of Project Management hire and onboard a Senior Project Manager to a company ready to take the next steps as an agile delivery team.