Improving time to delivery in a Shared Service environment

Business transformation to improve lead time to value

The Situation

ZXM was working on MC Identity Matching (MCID) in the Australian Taxation Office. This area supported several major programs and as a shared services, and were a critical integration point. Work was always “spilling” over and blowing out delivery expectations and timelines. Lead time, in some instances, was over 3 months.

Key needs included:

Reduce handovers

Reduce lead time by reducing the impact of multiple handovers between traditional silos.

Improve workforce effectiveness

Minimise the impact of "urgent" work and context switching on productivity and strategic delivery priorities.

Focus on value creation

Re-prioritise the focus on value-based metrics over work with no relative business value.

The Solution

The leadership had wanted to transform the area and apply agile frameworks to delivery but faced significant cultural and change resistance. ZXM suggested instead developed a strategy and recommendations focussing a business transformation on:

Introducing a “one front door” policy.
Introducing rigour to the prioritisation of work based on cost of delay.
Improving the transparency of work in-progress.
Aligning to the iterative planning cadence of other programs.
Helping create a sense of achievement through using shorter-term Sprint Goals aligned to longer term objectives and OKRs.
Focusing on improving the flow of work.
Improving throughput by limiting the amount of work done at any one time.

ZXM’s strategy ultimately aimed to minimise disruption and iteratively build upon current delivery practices and processes, and not jeopardise current commitments.

The Results

With a focus on value metrics tied to impact goals, ZXM were able to improve time to delivery. In the space of 3 months, Lead Time dropped from an average of 52 days to 17 days and Cycle Time halved from 20 days to 10.