The new CIO was faced with a major challenge: a retail company had set up a technical e-commerce team, almost independently of IT, which was to drive online retail forward largely autonomously. Success came quickly and the team grew. And with it the problems: Disagreements had arisen between the young team and the "old IT", as the connection to backend systems became more necessary and more demanding as the online platform grew. In addition, the head of the e-commerce department unexpectedly resigned verbally and went on vacation. There were now 40 developers working in the team and the department had just been restructured into Scrum teams. What was to be done?
The management decided on an interim solution. They asked the interim manager to take over until the situation was clarified. After 3 weeks, the head of department resigned permanently and the interim manager stayed on to fill the position until the vacancy was filled.
Within these 3 weeks, the interim manager gained an overview of the team's situation and derived measures in consultation with the CIO. In addition to the restructuring, the relaunch of the store platform had to be reactivated and driven forward. The focus was therefore placed on the following 3 topics
Change in communication ends cross-departmental trench warfare
An important goal was to end the trench warfare in order to significantly improve the working atmosphere and promote employee motivation and thus output. The first step was to significantly improve communication between e-commerce and the rest of IT. In discussions with employees and colleagues at management level, it quickly became clear that the teams showed little understanding and appreciation for each other's performance. In addition, mutual accusations were more important than solving the problems.
In order to change this, the interim manager organized cross-departmental meetings. As a moderator, she made sure that the participants only discussed possible solutions on a technical level and that the statements were explained in a way that everyone understood. A new atmosphere quickly emerged: employees began to understand why some things could not be implemented by their colleagues. Now they were ready to find new solutions. The first rapprochement had been achieved.
This change process was given additional momentum by the focus on another topic, the reactivation of the "online store relaunch" project.
Initial workshops promote entry into independent agile project work
The online retail systems had reached their limits. Every new development became more complex due to the system. There was an urgent need for a new modular system to be set up. A project that had shown no progress for six months.
The interim manager quickly found the cause: although the team worked in Scrum units, they had not internalized agile working for a long time. Instead, the teams were waiting for the CIO to tell them what needed to be done for the project.
In order to drive the project and independent agile working forward, the interim manager initiated cross-departmental workshops in which the experts developed the approach to implementing the project themselves. This led to an in-depth discussion in which the experts realized how much they could learn from each other.
In the workshop, the first concrete steps for the project were defined and stored in the backlog. A new cross-departmental Scrum team was put together for the project with the workshop team. The employees now knew what needed to be done. Full of enthusiasm for the new topic, the new team was able to organize itself after a few weeks and drive the pilot forward independently.
The positive side effect: the project developed as an additional promoter of successful cross-departmental collaboration. The employees had a common task that welded them together. They now suggested organizational improvements themselves in order to make collaboration more efficient beyond the project.
Positive feedback motivates and improves the working atmosphere in the long term
The e-commerce team had a bad image of producing little output. The causes quickly became apparent: the trench warfare had prevented cross-system solutions from being found. As a result, one or two projects got stuck in the mire. Secondly, the team did not communicate its own performance. The focus of communication was always on what was not working. The first cause was gradually addressed and resolved through the moderated meetings described above.
In order to improve communication beyond this, the interim manager coordinated with the Scrum masters. The developers had to learn to present their services in a less technical and complex way in meetings with their customers (marketing, sales, purchasing, etc.).
A Scrum master trained the employees in pocket rhetoric - and within a short time, the teams received positive feedback from the other departments. People now understood what the team was doing - and they received recognition for it. This visibly motivated the Scrum teams. Their performance improved both qualitatively and quantitatively. The CIO also received positive feedback from the departments.
E-commerce team attracts the attention of the corporate group
The rapid successes prompted the enthusiastic CIO to place the team within the corporate group. The interim manager was assigned the project management of a group-wide collaboration to develop a front end as an inner-source model. Employees from the e-commerce team and related IT areas took part in the project as experts.
After 7 months of intensive work, the mood had turned 180 degrees. In addition, obstacles had been removed and new projects had been set in motion. Nevertheless, it was important to prepare the new head of department for his tasks. The interim manager worked closely with him for a month until he had successively taken on one topic after another and gained the trust of the team.
