CGI utnyttjade Planview Hub för att stödja effektivitet från början till slut och förbättra kundnöjdheten

As one of the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world, CGI delivers end-to-end capabilities, including application services, to help clients achieve their goal of becoming customer-centric digital enterprises. As part of its application services, CGI managed a disparate and customized landscape of tools and processes, which impacted efficiency, profitability and client satisfaction.

Genom CGI Application Services Optimization Program (CGI ASOP) strävade CGI efter att standardisera arbetsprocesser och verktyg på 400 platser och för tusentals kunder. CGI ASOP är en framåtblickande, teamdriven metod för att omvandla applikationshantering till handlingsbara insikter som hjälper kunderna att driva resultat och värde. För att möjliggöra en enhetlig strategi för global leverans använde CGI Planview Hub för att stödja effektivitet från början till slut och förbättra kundnöjdheten.

• Disparate tools and processes, which impacted project effectiveness and client delivery, were replaced by a standard tool and work process at CGI.
• Planview Hub hjälper till att påskynda integrationen mellan CGI och kundens verktyg över hela världen, vilket minskar projektens uppstartstid med cirka sex veckor och förbättrar lönsamheten.
• Under hela projektets livscykel synkroniserar Planview data mellan CGI och dess kunder i nära realtid, vilket minimerar mänskliga fel, minskar potentiella SLA-överträdelser och genererar besparingar på många tusen dagar per år i CGI:s och kundernas personalkapacitet.
• CGI leaders benefit from a centralized view of metrics and visualizations for projects in their domain, geography, or industry to help improve business outcomes.

CGI provides application development, maintenance and support services to thousands of clients worldwide, each with their own tools and workflows. CGI professionals regularly change their assignment, and each reassignment previously resulted in a time-consuming effort to learn new methods and tools.

Individual productivity was also impacted by the requirement to duplicate data in client systems and CGI systems due to lack of real-time synchronization, which caused communication delays and SLA breaches. Moreover, the decentralization of information made it difficult for managers to assess the full backlog of their teams and measure key performance indicators (KPIs) across multiple projects.

In cases where integration between CGI and the client systems was possible, CGI had to use its own resources to develop and maintain custom tool integrations, an expensive process that delayed ramp-up and customer delivery and impacted project margins.

CGI recognized the need for standardization to be able to deliver value to its clients globally. Its Application Services Optimization Program (ASOP) aimed to provide consistency to the methods and processes used by each delivery team and to standardize KPI reporting across projects and locations. ASOP would ensure faster project instantiation and support higher velocity and delivery in the crucial early weeks of a project and throughout its entire lifecycle.

The ASOP initiative was two-fold. First, CGI would reduce the number of tools used internally by standardizing on one tool for project delivery (Atlassian Jira). The tool would be embedded with standard templates and processes to reduce variability between projects, and ASOP coaches would be assigned to onboard and train project teams. Next, they would acquire a powerful integration platform that could synchronize CGI’s Jira with client systems, essentially abstracting away each client’s specific tool environment and work processes.

CGI’s experience in developing and maintaining custom integrations over the years made the business case for an off-the-shelf integration platform. CGI’s Application Services Council was looking for a scalable solution.

CGI valde Planview Hub, en mycket sofistikerad integrationsplattform avsedd för leverans av programvara till företag. Planview Hub är unikt utformat kring konceptet modeller, vilket möjliggör standardisering och enkel återanvändning varje gång en ny kund tas ombord.

Flow Fabric™, Planviews ryggrad för datatransport, förser CGI med över 60 förbyggda, kodfria kopplingar till alla specialverktyg som har skapats av Agile- och DevOps-rörelserna. Planviews proaktiva stöd för över 300 verktygsversioner hjälper till att skydda CGI från störningar i det dubbelriktade dataflödet.

När ASOP lanserades i 2017 nominerade varje land ett antal projekt till pilotprojektet. Med tiden växte gruppen till 12 enskilda CGI-kunder i sju länder och 49 integrationer. Varje kund synkroniserade sina arbetshanteringsverktyg med CGI:s Jira, via sin egen säkra Planview Hub-anslutning.

• Features and stories from Jira and Azure DevOps
• Tickets and incidents from ServiceNow and Remedy
• Tests and defects from Micro Focus ALM
• Requirements from Jama

Genom implementeringen av Planview Hub kunde CGI uppnå sina nyckeltal för lönsamhet och produktivitet.

Three primary benefits result from this:

• A significant improvement in IT staff velocity has unlocked capacity equivalent to over 7,500 days per year. By removing tasks like duplicate data entry, CGI has delivered better customer value. Productivity, measured at CGI as actual time vs. estimated time, has improved as well, with updates flowing back and forth seamlessly between CGI and its clients, and teams making fewer mistakes.
• Real-time synchronization between tools has resulted in elimination of common human errors, for example, forgetting to update a client’s system when an issue is resolved or neglecting to check a client’s system for an update.
• CGI is ramping up projects faster, thus improving margins, with a net savings of 1-2 month’s effort at the start of every project. Clients are reporting higher satisfaction levels in the area of tooling for projects running on ASOP.

Med ASOP:s enorma framgång planerar CGI att integrera minst 20 nya kunder under 2021, med hjälp av hela den portfölj av verktygskopplingar som Planview tillhandahåller. CGI för över metoden för värdeflödeshantering till IT-konsultvärlden och optimerar kontinuerligt flödet från kundförfrågan till kundleverans och tar bort slöseri genom processförbättring och automatisering.

The Flow Framework Community provides a professional, inclusive, and supportive environment for learning, questioning, and networking on all topics related to the Flow Framework, Flow Metrics, and value stream management (VSM). flowframework.org/community