As a relatively small company, one of our greatest assets is the personal relationship we can cultivate with users. We know many of you by name (don’t panic), we get to read every single piece of feedback you send, and a few of us have even had the chance to visit your offices and see how you work.
To reciprocate this, we’d like to shine a light onto who we are by occasionally sharing team retrospectives, process investigations, and personal interviews. Many of you have probably already chatted with our first victim candidate: Sergey Gnedin, head of support.
Targetprocess Support: Behind the curtains
Hi, Sergey. When did you get started at Targetprocess?
About seven years ago, I was working in QA at an enterprise company. At the time, Targetprocess was just getting started, and they needed someone in support with a technical background, who could reproduce bugs and work on more complex issues. After all, they were providing support for people with QA experience. I had no idea who they were until this dude contacted me about the job. I visited in 2010 and was really impressed. It was a small team, everyone was nice, everything was informal, and decisions were made quickly. I liked the setting, so I quit my enterprise job and came here.
What do you do at Targetprocess?
Well, I’m the head of Customer Support, so most of the time I’m talking to users. We don't have any tiers or levels of support, so you can usually find me in our live chat answering questions and helping out (or making things even more confusing).
Historically, I’m the only official ‘manager’ in the company, because we technically don’t have managers, but I signed on before this trend got started. Our support team works well and no one’s asked for change, so no need to fix what’s not broken. Everyone does a great job, so there’s no need to micromanage or control anything.
We’ve always had some form of strategic board to help steer the company and decide where to go with our products. We value the feedback and opinion of our customers, so I’ve always been a member of these groups as a representative for the users — who I talk to every day.
I was also the Product Owner for our Service Desk for some time, but stepped back from this role a while after its release. I gathered requirements, talked to customers, let them know what we were doing and how we were doing it. Sometimes, a customer would ask for something, I would go to the team, and it would only be 20 minutes from request to production. We can’t do that with Targetprocess, but Service Desk was a nice cozy product. It was a lot of fun.
What was it like trying split time between all these different hats?
It was absolutely difficult to split time between so many work roles. The nature of support work itself is very asynchronous - there can be spikes, loads, quiet hours. Sometimes, there would be a dozen conversations, some with internal teams, some with chats, a phone call coming in, plus high level support contracts with VIP customers. Obviously, any chat from a customer must be quickly prioritized over anything else. Context switching is tough but also intense and fun.
Our support team is spread across four countries and three timezones. What’s it like working with remote teams?
I honestly do prefer co-located teams, as it’s faster to discuss things and brainstorm. But we have group calls, and we all know each other quite well, so overall it’s not really a problem. We have an awesome remote team. One of our guys just moved to South America, which will help improve our hours for the U.S. west coast.
What do you do with your free time?
I spend a lot of time with family. I have a son who’s 4, and very active. He takes up most of my time when he’s not asleep. I also enjoy some sports, gaming, books.
Bonus round:
Coffee, tea after that. ☕ ☕
Favorite travel destination?
The Witcher series - the third was my favorite. 🔮
It’s clear that the Agile Methodology is not restricted to software development teams. Countless organizations have improved their flexibility and delivery speed with an Agile mindset, and many have successfully scaled Agile through every department. Agile is already widely used in marketing, education, and even auto manufacturing.
If you’re a non-IT team that wants to adopt the Agile mindset, you will likely encounter some resistance to change. This is good. Criticism of Agile can help your application of its values to improve. To encourage non-IT teams to embrace Agile, you should first demonstrate the value that an Agile mindset can deliver.
Don’t prescribe; encourage
The Agile methodology has (unfortunately) been fairly well-saturated with buzzwords and prescriptive practices. As Dipanjan Munshi puts it, “The process whose manifesto declared ‘People over Processes’ has now became a standardized prescriptive process in itself.”
To avoid putting anyone off unduly, don’t introduce Agile as a set of prescriptive processes. Instead, frame it as a cultural practice and a mindset for approaching work. Note that a successful Agile culture will help to increase employee independence, trust, and personal responsibility. In a traditional environment, management ends up being responsible for both failures and successes. In an Agile environment, responsible individuals shoulder this responsibility.
It’s important for Agile transformations to happen more-or-less organically. Nobody wants to put up with another vague strategy change that’s been mandated by management. This is the the sort of thing that an Agile mindset is supposed to eliminate.
Don't transform; iterate
There are a lot of practices that have formed around Agile; introduce them iteratively, and you’ll be able to the avoid the culture-shock that has stagnated many transformations. To get started, research Scrum and Kanban. Try to understand which practices might work for you, and why:
Kanban - Kanban uses a board with cards that represent work items. As a work item progresses from idea to completion, it is moved forward through the board's swimlanes. It's great for helping teams adjust to frequently changing priorities. Setting WIP (work in progress) limits helps teams to reduce context switching and avoid getting bogged down by an ever-expanding scope of work.
Scrum - Scrum is great for organizing teams and for making continuous improvements to your work process using Retrospectives. It's fairly heavy on planning (compared to Kanban), and uses fixed iterations to help teams understand and improve their velocity. Most teams utilize a Scrum Master - an individual whose job it is to facilitate meetings, remove impediments, and generally help the team get their work done.
If you're aiming for a large scale shift to Agile, take extra care when planning change. Peter Merel, a long-time Agile consultant and founder of the XSCALE Alliance, advocates the use of steel-thread squads: A small number of progressive people adopt Agile practices and measure their metrics to prove the productivity benefits. The team then divides like a cell and spreads to other teams. This allows for a natural change that doesn’t disrupt the established organization. The transformation is iterative rather than sudden; Agile is adopted using Agile.
Bridge the gaps between software development and the domain of your teams
Some Agile coaches have noted that it is difficult to link the idea of “delivering working software” to other fields of work. Opposition tends to come in the form of rebuttals such as “We’re too quality-focused to adopt this practice.” This line of thinking comes from a lack of understanding about the core principles of Agile. Keep in mind that Agile does not mean sacrificing quality for speed. Rather, it means you should deliver the highest quality you can, without getting bogged down by process or bureaucracy.
The concept of developing “working software” can easily translate to any field. It simply means the first point where you can deliver real value to your customers. Define the variables of what "working software" and "end user" means to your team. Figure out what what could be considered as one of the basic building blocks of your final deliverable so that you can get feedback at an early stage.
You also shouldn't feel obligated to use the vernacular of Agile. It was created in an IT world, and might be irrelevant or confusing for your teams. Consider changing the terminology of your tool or process to reflect the vernacular your team already feels comfortable with. For example, a marketing team might rename Features as Campaigns, a sales team might rename User Stories as Leads, etc.
Synchronize, but don’t get bogged down by ceremony
When you have multiple teams practicing Agile, you run the risk of creating what has come to be called "Agile silos." These are teams which are practicing Agile internally, but lack cross-team or cross-departmental coordination. This is not a good recipe. There needs to be some sort of unifying vision to help turn these different teams into a collaborative ecosystem. There are multiple frameworks to help you plan this out, including SAFe, DaD, LeSS, and LeadingAgile.
So, it's important to synchronize your teams, but you also have to be careful to not get bogged by ceremony and bureaucracy. A central pillar of Agile is replacing processes with interactions. Adopting the ceremonies of Agile without understanding their purpose is a huge red flag. Don't constrain your teams by trying to over-synchronize them with processes that they don't need.
“Humans are of very low value as cogs in a machine doing identical things in interchangeable ways. That's for robots. Humans are most valuable when they have high autonomy, and able to play to their unique strengths and histories, particular sensitivities, op-tempos, and patterns of privileged information. The idea of "wisdom of the crowds" in fact rests on humans having diverse, unique private knowledge bases. The madness of crowds kicks in with synchronization and imitation.” -Premature Synchronization is the Root of All Evil
Final thoughts
One of the biggest pitfalls you can fall into is looking at Agile as a cure-all panacea that will help you do more work in less time. This is not what Agile is about. It's about breaking out of the rigid structures that constrain individuals from completing their work in the best possible way.
Learn the various techniques and strategies that Agilists have accumulated over the years, and pick the mixture that works best for you. Above all, don't lose sight of the values in the original Agile Manifesto.
Earlier this year, Realm Digital brought their company culture of embracing new technology to life by consolidating their suite of software tools and introducing Targetprocess to manage workflows.
Previously, Realm was using a host of software for their Scrum-based Agile development, including Harvest for time tracking, Mantis for bug tracking, and Float for resource scheduling (to name a few).
They needed a solution that could help them to both improve their Scrum process and unite the different functions of their various other software tools. To ensure that their business processes remained agile and lean, CEO Simon Bestier championed the migration to Targetprocess.
Now that they’re a few months in, their marketing manager sat down with Developer Kyle Mulder and newly appointed Project and Operations Manager Hans Croukamp to see what kind of a difference Targetprocess has made at Realm Digital so far.
Q. Kyle, what has been the most noticeable change in the way we approach projects since Realm moved over to Targetprocess?
Kyle: After switching to Targetprocess, the most noticeable change has been that we now set achievable two week sprints. Thanks to the effort-based point system that Targetprocess uses, we can now see what project teams are capable of accomplishing by checking out a project’s sprint velocity. This enables us to set realistic targets for our sprints, rather than packing them with too much work, resulting in a sprint not being finished.
Q. Do you think the entire Realm team has embraced Targetprocess and all it has to offer?
Kyle: While I’d like to believe that we have fully embraced Targetprocess, I still think there are a lot of hidden features and functionality in the tool that could come in handy to ease our workflows and minimize the amount of other applications we require on a daily basis.
Hans: Targetprocess is vastly different from any other project management software I’ve worked with before. From a project management perspective, I find the different customizable views, dashboards, and reports to be extremely helpful. The buy-in from the team is very positive and the tool greatly assists us by presenting a 360-view on every project. It is quite a powerful tool and can be customized in numerous ways. The more you play around with the tool, the more you find the features and views the platform has to offer.
Q. Which Targetprocess feature, in your opinion, adds the most value, but is underused?
Kyle: From a Developer and Team Lead point of view, the most valuable, yet underused feature, would be using the “relations” functionality with User Stories. The ability to relate multiple stories a big Feature is quite useful.
We also often use Burndown Charts to review a sprint’s progress and get insight into how much effort is remaining to complete a User Story . There is also a sub-tasks functionality, but these provide estimates based on hours, rather than story points, which is less useful for us.
A Burndown Chart in Targetprocess
Hans: The customization of views and boards is probably the feature that I use the most. I can’t necessarily say it is under-utilized, but the more I dig into the views, the more I find value in the details. I can also see the “eureka moment” for colleagues and clients when Targetprocess is used to explain the status of a project.
If I had to highlight something that I do think has tremendous value but that we’re currently not using to the full extent, it would be the ability to see points and work allocation per person/resource.
Q. Hans, is there anything you can think of that can make learning how to use Targetprocess easier?
Hans: Targetprocess is a comprehensive tool with different functionality for different people; Project Managers, Account Managers, Developers, Management, etc. We all use the tool slightly differently.
Although I love the videos on the Targetprocess YouTube channel, it really takes you awhile to understand the tool as a new user. I do believe that breaking the learning process down and approaching it from how each person in their respective role will use the tool can help – rather than to trying to comprehend everything the tool can do at once.
I also think it might be good for them to raise 'Targetprocess champions' – people from different companies who can share their experience with the software. The recorded Webinars also really helped me when I started learning what the tool can do.
This post was submitted by Realm Digital, a global digital strategy and technology partner located in South Africa. The company specializes in digital solutions including web and mobile development. For more information, visit their website at www.realmdigital.co.za.
Looking to publish your own article on our blog? Send your pitch to news@targetprocess.com. We publish articles on Agile, team communication, software development, your own experiences with business software, and anything else related to collaboration.
If integration with another software tool is absolutely essential to your work, you’ll be happy to hear about our latest partnership. You can now synchronize your Targetprocess account with any tool on Tasktop Sync, including Atlassian JIRA, Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS), GitHub Issues, Zendesk, HPE Quality Center, Bugzilla and more. You can find a full list of possible integrations here.
This means that if you or any of your teams are using a separate tool or software infrastructure for their work – perhaps for quality assurance, product support, ALM, or PPM – you can use Tasktop Sync to automatically synchronize data between the multiple solutions. Teams can work with the tool of their choice, without having to waste time manually transferring and standardizing information.
How will this help Targetprocess users?
Let's start with an example: You and your company have just made the switch to Targetprocess, but QA has requested another year with their current tool. You can use Tasktop Sync to link entities in Targetprocess with whatever artifact is used to represent bugs in your QA team's tool.
This kind of synchronization allows Targetprocess to show the real-time status and priority of work items, and can also help your teams maintain flow and traceability. Keep in mind that this is just a singular example; Tasktop Sync can do far more than just synchronizing cards. You can link an entire software infrastructure to Targetprocess, if need be.
- Seamlessly & bi-directionally integrate with other PPM, Agile planning, requirements management, test management, and service desk tools
- Save time by eliminating the need for import-export of data and manual standardization of information between tools
- Synchronize artifacts across the lifecycle
- Reduce time to market with better flow and traceability between tools
- Get real-time data for faster and more informed decisions
- Keep all teams on the same page, even if they work from different tools
How to setup integration with other tools via Tasktop Sync
To get started with Tasktop Sync, go to the Tasktop website and fill out this form. For an annual fee (the amount of which depends on your requirements), they will sync your Targetprocess account with the tools or infrastructure you require (if the software is included on Tasktop Sync’s integration list). You can view Tasktop’s installation guide here.
More information on Tasktop
Tasktop is a market leader in the Software Lifecycle Integration market. Unlike other common integration providers, there is no charge each time an integration is used, making this solution ideal for users who require in-depth infrastructure synchronization or are frequently switching between tools. The service helps to improve end-to-end traceability for companies that use multiple tools for collaboration or infrastructure.
Notable Tasktop Features:
- System administrators can integrate software tools through a graphical interface that lets them create, maintain and monitor integrations – with no programming.
- Differences among data types, text formatting, and even very complex relationships among artifacts are handled right out of the box.
- ALM tool users never see Tasktop Sync and don’t leave their tool of choice; artifacts are synced automatically without manual intervention.
- New releases from tool vendors are supported almost immediately. Tasktop’s test lab catches API changes as soon as a SaaS release is rolled out.
- Tasktop’s change detection algorithm does not overburden endpoint systems; performance is not gated by the number of artifacts synched.
- Tasktop can handle simultaneous updates and conflicts resulting from differences in workflow rules among endpoint systems.
- Operates even when endpoints are disconnected or offline.
- Can be used with on-premise, on-demand or hybrid infrastructures
- Tasktop’s integrations are bi-directional, easy to deploy and configure.
For more information, please do not hesitate to send your inquiries to info@tasktop.com, or post your questions and comments below.
