Bread (Breadpayments.com) was juggling three major implementations, high staff turnover, and global teams across 4 countries. BTG stepped in as PMO to unify project tracking, enforce Agile discipline, and dramatically improve delivery throughput.
Client
Bread (Breadpayments.com) — Bread partners with retailers to offer pay-over-time financing solutions that make purchasing easier and more transparent for consumers.
Issue
Bread was facing a perfect storm of operational challenges during a critical growth period:
- High staff turnover during three simultaneous major project implementations
- Internal and external developers were forced to compress development schedules while rolling out new products and enhancements
- Management had no reliable visibility into the status of deliverables
- The organization was coordinating global teams across 4 countries, adding significant complexity to communication and project tracking
Resolution
BTG was engaged to provide PMO (Project Management Office) services and establish best practices to position Bread for sustainable growth. Our approach included:
- Conducted a full systems and processes review, mapping all data repositories and project tracking tools
- Implemented SmartSheets as a unified online project management tool
- Consolidated data from 4 sources: Jira, SmartSheets, Microsoft Project, and SharePoint
- Enforced Agile and SCRUM methodologies with strict meeting cadences for all developer teams
- Instituted a Global RAID log with customer-level detail for risks, actions, issues, and decisions
- Structured software release notes into two formats: External (customer-facing) and Internal (Bread employees only)
Results
- Deliverables were realigned with vetted resource input, giving the team a realistic and achievable roadmap
- Project managers gained the workload visibility needed to proactively mitigate obstacles and lag times
- Customer teams received weekly high-level milestones, release notes, and QA statistics
- Reduced meetings and confusion by providing a single unified view of all project task statuses
- Developers could accurately map Jira items to customer-specific software deliverables
- RAID log entries became more precise, actionable, and informative
- Rework tickets were reduced, saving development time and resources
- Client team complaint calls decreased as communication and delivery predictability improved
- Developer throughput increased across the board
Boomer Technology Group provides PMO, Agile coaching, and project management services for technology-driven organizations. Contact us to learn how we can bring structure and velocity to your next initiative.