ENGAGEMENT
The Data Science organization for a large technology and game design company faced significant challenges with outdated work management practices and a convoluted knowledge management system. The tooling and information used to track projects and tasks was not only incorrect but also out of date. This inefficiency was compounded by a knowledge management infrastructure filled with thousands of legacy and unused pages, making it extremely difficult to locate important documents.
DayBlink Consulting was brought in to rectify these issues. We led a comprehensive redesign of the work management and productivity infrastructure, including the implementation of a hybrid waterfall/agile approach. This new approach allowed team leadership to plan for the future while maintaining the flexibility needed for week-to-week task completion. DayBlink Consulting’s implementation also involved archiving legacy documents and tools, setting the data science team up for future success.
PROBLEM
Numerous problems existed: the client’s work ingestion, task tracking and knowledge management processes were inadequate. The team of about 35 people lacked a clear breakdown of work, proper task tracking, and effective agile processes. The outdated in-house built tool exacerbated the situation, as agile ceremonies were lengthy and unproductive, and ticketing was poorly managed. This led to a lack of visibility into progress and difficulty in reporting to leadership. Project managers and scrum masters had to update over 300 tickets at the end of each sprint, a time-consuming task necessary to keep updates on track and consistent. The knowledge management system was another major pain point, filled with legacy documentation and an unclear page structure, making it nearly impossible to find the necessary information.
SOLUTION
DayBlink Consulting developed a new program management approach using monday.com, coupled with Confluence for knowledge management and agile processes. The automated ticketing and tracking system allowed for quarterly roadmap projects to be tracked in a bi-weekly agile format. To ensure no projects or tasks were lost during the transition, DayBlink Consulting meticulously migrated active items into a standardized structure of projects, tasks and subtasks. In addition to revamping the work management system, DayBlink Consulting also tackled the knowledge management challenges. We automated the creation of consistent and templatized project formats for common requests, enabling the team to redesign the knowledge management tool effectively. This included archiving outdated documentation, generating automated templates, and developing a user-friendly homepage for both internal users and customers.
RESULT
The client team experienced an immediate boost in productivity across the data science organization. The new processes ensured organized and consistent use of work management tracking tools. The seamless transition of existing tickets and automations into the new monday.com system facilitated rapid adoption. DayBlink Consulting also provided thorough training for staff on the new knowledge management processes, templates and structure.
The success of this initiative led to proposals for adopting these processes in other parts of the organization in the future. Through planning, effective implementation and thorough training, DayBlink Consulting transformed outdated systems into efficient, user-friendly tools, significantly improving productivity and setting the team up for continued success.