MTL

Project Details

Challenge

This company is one of the world’s primary financial information suppliers and a leading multimedia news provider. The technology division employs some 4500 IT staff around the world, and has a development community of close to 2000 split between onshore, offshore and outsourced capability. After a sequence of poor quality product releases Nick was appointed as Global Head of Quality with an open brief to materially improve the quality of the company’s delivered products.

Delivery

Initially Nick undertook a structured interview process to understand what business and IT perceived to be the root cause of the recent product release failures. In parallel with this he reviewed the QA and development process for all major development teams around the world. Nick then proposed a major structural change to the organisation of Quality in which each release would have a quality organisation and process associated with it, with a representative assigned from each development team. A number of mandatory documents and checkpoint meetings were also proposed. Lastly a Quality governance organisation was proposed which put in place to ensure best practise and provide a fast escalation path for Quality issues. This proposal was put to the board of the company and was approved, together with the headcount and budget necessary for its implementation. Nick then set about putting these proposals in place. Within six months the structure was operational and he managed the first six months of its operation, ensuring that projects that were indicating a Quality risk were recovered. Lastly, Nick put in place succession planning and handed over management of the Global Quality function.

Outcome

Since this process has been in place, there has been no recurrence of the poor quality releases that prompted Nick’s appointment