In the century of complexity, some methodologies facilitate the workflow, from multidisciplinary, integrated and more efficient teams. Meet the pillars of lean culture!

The frequent changes in the market demand from technology companies increasingly versatile and dynamic working methods. A major challenge of organizational management in the tech environment is to expand innovation to implement simpler processes that are attentive to market demands, adapting their solutions to the requirements of each client without having to overload employees or increase production costs.

According to a study released by the Standish Group, 45% of software features used today are not used and only 7% of them are used frequently. At the same time, large software projects are only fully satisfactory at a rate of 2%, while 17% of them often fail. The low applicability of the systems is often the result of poorly planned actions still in the development stage, reflecting the work format of the responsible team.

From planning to delivery, technology companies tend to view the software development process as a linear sequence. The first step to apply more assertive methodologies is to consider reality as a much more fickle and challenging scenario. Going through the analysis, construction, and testing steps is much more of a cyclical process than a straightforward one.

Thinking about the challenges of software engineering, in 2001, members of the technological community published the Agile Manifesto, a document with values ​​and principles that govern agile development practices, based on actions that make the process simpler and more effective. Among the fundamentals of the manifesto is the prioritization of actions that can be adapted, rather than restricted and organized planning.

Implementing and realizing agile values

The Lean Agile methodology involves the constant search for efficiency and, among other values, prioritizes employees and their integration. Agile principles encourage rapid response to change, putting aside bureaucracy and excess planning and valuing simpler formats and joint methods:

Individuals and interactions more than processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over negotiation and contracts
Responding to change rather than following a plan
Going against the grain of classical management theories, the implementation of the agile method focuses on changing people’s attitudes, in order to generate a behavioral transformation and lead to a different result in each and every process. The idea is to change the organizational structure so that all actions carried out in the company are based on universal values ​​of collaboration and agility.

According to Version One’s annual report, the world’s largest survey of agile culture, the key benefit of agile culture is its ability to manage changing priorities. Other advantages involve increased team productivity, project visibility and employee motivation.

“Fail fast, learn fast, succeed early!”

In software development, the Lean Culture is applied from the optimization of each iteration cycle, period in which the product is developed. The agile method seeks to facilitate problem solving and generate new developments for each system, focusing on better results and adaptations more geared to customer needs.

Agile culture in practice

Here at HBSIS, we started to implement a culture more focused on people instead of processes starting in August 2015. With a decades-long trajectory in the technology market, our solutions are focused on increasing productivity and team integration, in for better results for our customers. With more than 400 professionals in different areas, we realized that proposing a new internal working model on these same bases required the active participation of employees, who were primarily responsible for spreading a new culture within the company.

We suggest validation challenges and adopt new processes, with the aim of making teams multidisciplinary and autonomous. After three months of training, each team became capable of responding to the products developed, getting to know each software functionality and prioritizing user needs.

The benefits involved greater user support, unification of areas, less management effort and increased customer confidence. With the methodology, we took advances to the entire company and implemented Management 3.0, focused on the concept of organization as a relationship network, in which management works to help processes and teams.

The 21st century is the ‘Century of Complexity’. We all need to acquire new skills to work properly with complex systems.

As a technology company responsible for serving large companies, we realize that seeking methods of adapting to change impacts not only our employees’ daily lives, but also the results presented and recognition by our customers. Today, HBSIS focuses on a continuous evolution guided by the agile methodology of software development, with increasing challenges, but solved with collaboration and self-organization.

Think about the product, more than the projects; form cross-functional and integrated teams; be based on value and quality: the teachings of the agile method establish a learning culture focused on people, technology and best practices. After all, in a context of changes and challenges, learning to adapt practices is an organization’s true competitive weapon.