The Cattening

Project format

  • Six (student) developers
     
  • Colocated (and same-cultured, ref. Pettigrew, Woodman, and Cameron 2001)
     
  • 8 weeks to start a project
    • Engage average users
    • (New) user profiles
       
  • Use gathered data in a fun way
     
  • Only kind of consulting

(Consulting Lifecycle as inspiration)

Structure

We were outsiders

(O'Mahoney & Markham 2013)

  • Partial delivery
  • Alignment was difficult
  • Complicated handover(?)

Result

Background: change was already happening

  • Moving from desktop & mobile to responsive mobile
     
  • Technical restructuring to "microservice" architecture (imperative for our project)
     
  • "Annual" restructuring of teams and human resources

We (naturally) brought a few changes as well

  • Tie the users closer to the profile
     
  • Integrated the (new) profile further into the service
    • Communicated through company wiki & one meeting – not good (O'Mahoney & Markham 2013)
       
  • Demonstrated a short term win for new technological architecture (Kotter 1995)

There were several potential issues

  • No capacity ⟶ project dies 
    • Reality as of today
       
  • Internal
    • Missing alignment
    • ... or commitment?
    • High-level communication
    • Complex handover
       
  • External
    • The users don't respond
    • Company commitment changes

Soft skills were required

  • Alignment with strategy
     
  • Bring actual value (testing + KPIs)
    (Kotter 1995)
     
  • Internal team communication & task management (O'Mahoney & Markham 2003, Hargie 2011, Joseph et al. 2010)
     
  • High-level communication and negotiation with "client"
    (O'Mahoney & Markham 2003)
    • Graphs speak volumes
    • Mapping results to strategy works

Soft skills + tech = success

  • Continuous high-level communication
    • Clearly defined goal for the project
       
  • Agile project management (kind of matters)
     
  • Continuous deliveries, minor changes (e.g., Luftman 2009)
     
  • Handover seems to have gone well
    • Decisions were documented
      (O'Mahoney & Markham 2013)
       
  • No real project review: not a consultancy project

References

  • Hargie, O. (2011). Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory and Practice. Fifth edition. UK: Routledge

  • Joseph, D.; Ang, S.; Chang, R.; Slaughter, S. (2010). "Practical Intelligence in IT: Assessing Soft Skills of IT Professionals". Communications of the ACM. Vol. 53, No. 2, pp. 149-154.

  • Kotter, J. (1995). "Leading change: why transformation efforts fail". Harvard Business Review. March-April 1995.
  • Luftman, J. (2009). Managing the Information Technology Resource. Second Kindle edition.

  • O'Mahoney, J. & Markham, C. (2013). Management Consultancy. Second edition. USA: Oxford University Press

  • Pettigrew, A.; Woodman, R.; Cameron, K. (2001). "Studying organizational change and development: challenges for future research". Academy of Management Journal 2001, Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 697-713.
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