From dysfunction to cross-function

in 8,593 easy steps:

Jade Stephen & Sam Lightowler

WHAT DO WE PLAN TO COVER?

Who are we and what do we do?

Our metrics and what they tell us

Autonomy vs Interdependence and which wins

Our successes and failures as a department

What’s Next?

WHAT IS DIGITAL OPERATIONS

AND WHAT DO WE DO?

● 100 staff members with varying skill sets

● Autonomous, agile teams

● Stakeholders that represent content

areas and business units

● Work together to build CBC’s digital

products

● Serving 18 million unique visitors monthly

CMS

Web

Presentation

APPS

A/V

Ops

A/V

Events &

Extensions

Maintenance

Content

Distribution Analytics

WHAT DO WE DO WELL?

● We make use of agile frameworks like

Scrum and Kanban

● We have reasonable team sizes

● We focus on products, not projects

● We have persistent teams

● Most teams are colocated

● Most teams collaborate well internally

CMS

Web

Presentation

APPS

A/V

Ops

A/V

Events &

Extensions

Maintenance

Content

Distribution Analytics

HAVING AN OPEN DIALOGUE WITH STAFF

Staff survey based on Gallup’s Employee Engagement Survey issued quarterly

Share results publicly

Develop action plans together based on results

Communicate updates frequently

ENGAGEMENT HAS IMPROVED

3.6

3.7

3.6

3.9

4.0

3.8

3.9

4.4

Sept Jan/15

3.4

3.4

3.4

Apr/14

3.8

4.0

3.9

3.9

4.3

May

3.8

3.7

3.7

4.1

Sept

4.1

4.0

3.9

4.3

4.1

4.0

4.0

4.3

Apr/16 Aug

3.8

3.8

3.9

Dec

4.1

6

WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM?

Lack of shared goals within leadership team

Lack of strategic alignment across teams

Autonomy lead to lack of true collaboration and trust

No capacity and support for learning and experimentation

Disempowered, stressed staff

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HAVE

GOOD CROSS-TEAM COLLABORATION?

We find room to collaborate

We gain stakeholder trust

We save time by not constantly

“putting out fires”

Creates a more unified approach to

problem solving

OUR CORE VALUES

All team members are expected to exemplify our values -

collaboration, learning and improvement. We design and

build better solutions through collaboration. We focus on our

audience's expectations to foster a learning mindset. We commit

to helping each other, both inside and outside of our respective

teams, to improve and grow in order to reach our full potential.

HOW DID WE GET THERE?

Managers formed a real team

Core Values were developed

Modified our recurring alignment meetings

Focused on transparency

Developed a new mindset

Emphasized the importance of relationships

OUR SUCCESSES AND FAILURES

WE TRIED TO SOLVE

THE PROBLEM WITH MEETINGS

Product Platform Update Meeting

Product managers taking turns updating a group of stakeholders and staff

Content Backlog Update Meeting

Product managers sharing team roadmaps

Individual Stakeholder Meetings

Product teams meeting with stakeholders on product-by-product basis

All-Staff Update

Digital Operations management updating Digital Operations staff on key

decisions or changes

THE INTEGRATED DEMO

● Meeting for all staff and stakeholders

● Teams discuss work from the last 3 weeks

● Cross-team tasks are given priority

● Each team has 5-7 minutes to present

● Preference is given to working software

● No questions, talk after the meeting

THE INTEGRATED SCRUM

● 15 minute daily meeting

● One developer attends from each team

● Developers address today’s possible dependency issues

● Takes place before all daily scrums

INTEGRATED STAKEHOLDER MEETINGS

Bi-weekly

All stakeholders and Product Owners working on a single product attend

Everyone hears the same message

Work together to make decisions and solve problems

TOOLS FOR TRANSPARENCY

● All teams use Git, Jira and

Confluence

● Product Owners meet quarterly

● Teams use visual task boards

● A dependency board is always

visible

TEAM OUTINGS & SOCIAL GATHERINGS

ONE-TEAM-ONE-PRODUCT MINDSET

DIGITAL

OPERATIONS

Management team formed a real team

Employee engagement survey issued quarterly

Developed “Core Values” statement

Organizational priorities were communicated clearly

Empowered teams

Introduced new meetings with clear focus

Transparency is mandated

SO WHAT’S CHANGED?

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE?

Are we perfect? no. We know that

We are committed to upholding our values

Continuous improvement

Build, measure, learn

Committed to each other and ourselves to constantly get better

Adapt

Be agile (experiment and learn)