Transforming ASM capabilities of Business
Our Customer urgently needed to outsource their Application Support and Management (ASM) capabilities to achieve digital growth. They also required expertise in shaping and delivering IT projects for all services and applications.
By providing cost-efficient, best-in-class services, Arrk Group assisted our Customer in managing their ASM capabilities effectively.
Our Customer started as a not-for-profit organisation in 2009 to support sponsorship for charity & fundraising events and now wanted to create an online platform for fundraisers and charities to raise money online and offline.
They partnered with Arrk Group to design and develop their website in an aggressive nine-month window to coincide with their business commitments.
Customised Delivery Model
Charities
Fund Raising
Statement
After successfully launching the web platform, the Customer decided to maintain and enhance their in-house IT capacity and continued with that for a few years. However, as the business expanded and the demand grew, they realised they did not have enough capacity. They acknowledged the need to engage with the right-sized vendor who can understand their needs and provide them with the best ASM capabilities in a cost-efficient way. They wanted a team that was self-driven, self-organised and could provide the best development services and consultation whenever required. And who better than their original partner to turn to?
That is when Arrk stepped in and provided Customer with the much-desired extension to their IT Team, who, over the course of the next few years, was responsible for web support, maintenance, and future developments.
Cost Efficient
Self-Organised Team
Software Development
Professional Consultation
Objective
To better support their business goals and priorities, the Customer needed a team structure aligned with their business segments, namely Retention, Distribution and GDPR. A flexible delivery model with cross-functional scrum teams: Basically, a scrum of scrums wherein the delivery was jointly supervised by the team lead from both sides, but a single product manager and a single technical architect.
Customised Delivery Model
Flexible Team
Scrum of Scrums
Single POC
Solution
After careful consideration, it was agreed to have three scrum teams, one each for a business segment. Whilst each team consisted of designated programming and test resources, a few roles, such as the scrum master, product owner, tech lead and UX designer, were shared to ensure functional, technical, and user experience implementation consistency. As anticipated, the first couple of Sprints were a little chaotic while the team members were acquiring knowledge and getting to know each other. And as expected yet again, it was only a matter of time before the team dynamics kicked in, and the dust started settling down.
Experienced Team
Thorough Knowledge Acquisition
Organised Sprints
Team Dynamics
Outcomes
Excellent collaboration between Arrk & Customer’s IT teams resulted in several projects and tasks of varied size and duration. The list included not just functional development work such as Custom Codes, Corporates, Printable Reports, and Bulk Donations; there were tasks important from a technical improvement perspective too, such as properties internalisation, move from old frameworks (e.g. Struts) to contemporary ones (Spring), and investigation and recommendations towards underlying technology stack upgrade.
