The IT team at a company implemented Lean principles and saw many improvements as a result. They reduced support time from 25 hours per week to 10 hours, decreased the backlog of projects from 100 to 60, and increased customer satisfaction scores close to 100 from an initial 67. The team also took pride in their work as bugs decreased and development costs were reduced due to the new Lean processes around visual management, problem solving, and aligning team and customer goals.

1. How Lean helped out IT team take pride in their work
Story of our « Lean IT journey »
Mélanie Noyel, Head of IT

2. Interior contractor specialist
Hotel, Offices,
Shop, Stand,
Point-of-sale publicity…
« Everything’s possible »
Mass customization
Short delivery time
High level quality

3. The team
• Story with team members unchanged since 1 year:
• 3 network project leaders
• 2 development projects leaders
• Everyday lives
• Hotline / Support
• Projects
• Development and maintenance for 18 business applications
• Various IT training

4. Lean Manufacturing thinking in the factory side but limited attempts in the office side.
Early 2018 : A disappointing statement on efficiency and image of the IT Team :
• Working life Quality
• Team over loaded under support - over 25h of support per week
• Customer satisfaction
• First NPS mesure – 67
• Delay
• 30 projects open, 0 closing
• 100 demands or pbs waiting in backlog
• Demands forgotten
• Quality
• Many bugs in production
Feel down in the dumps
Fortunately … Lean IT academy start in may 2018 !
A disappointing statement…
… but a positive environment

5. Some verbatim from team…
• Natacha : « Plus on avance, plus on se rend compte de l’état « abandonné »
de certaines choses…»
• Dylan : « C’est brouillon. » « On perd beaucoup de temps pour des petites
choses. »

6. Some verbatim from customers…
• Mélanie, preparation workshop : « ça fait 100 fois qu’on remonte le
problème alors maintenant on fait avec…»
• Nicolas, maintenance : « C’était X qui devait s’en occuper mais je n’ai pas
de nouvelles. »
• Guy, concrete workshop manager : « Ça fait longtemps qu’on en parle
mais rien ne bouge. »
• Alain, director : « L’équipe informatique est un service support. Elle doit
être au service du reste de l’entreprise. »

7. Our « Lean IT Journey »
30 may 2018 – departure
Targeted goal : Better satisfaction for each of our customers…
(The company Acta and each app or IT users)
Quality
Cost
Delay
… and for us !
Security
Environment

8. 30/05/18 - BAM Focus on deliver value to
customers
Customer satisfaction
measurement
PDCA
15/06/18 - SwissLife
Paris
Importance of visual
management
First contact with rituals Start of PDCA use
09/18 – SwissLife
Roubaix
Importance of Work Life Quality Prioritization matrix First try for daily ritual First try to report support time
18/10/18 - Lean Digital
Summit Portugal
Motivation !
Importance to share successes
First try to report customer
satisfaction
20/12/18 - Sopra Steria Heijunka Box Skills matrix First try to report tickets backlog
06/02/19 - Theodo A3
Score customer demands
(value and effort)
19/03/19 – Keepeek Takt for app development Kanban to report app updates Heijunka Box
26/04/19 – Les
furets.com
Obeya for projects
29/05/19 – Acta-
Mobilier
Daily with finite capacity
organization
21/06/19 – No Parking Delays visualization
« Lean IT Journey »

9. June 2018 - PDCA to solve problems
What we learned
• Not being afraid of reccuring problems
• Work with right persons
• Understand and fight the right problem
First results
• Fixed problem during shipment pending for 1 year
• 15 min saved per shipment, 40 shipment per week
=> 10h saved per week
• Dynamism to make PDCA
Long term results (1.5 year later)
• 12 PDCA opened including 10 closed
• Systemic treatment of recurrent problems with PDCA
• Support time reduced from 25h per week to 10h per
week
• Happy team to close recurring subjects
• Self confidence in solving complex problems

10. From september 2018 to today – Our « daily » to communicate and organize
• Team more welded
• « Perfect day » satisfaction
• Feel less « overbooked »
What we learned
• Share only important things
• Commit to daily goals
• Delegate and divide work together
• Ask questions face to non-delivery
Results
• Pareto with causes for non-delivery

11. February 2019 – Evolution to our « daily »
to cover different topics
What we learned
• Talk about a topic everyday to make it important
• Share only important things
• Bring out the problems
• Pull the andon for dissatisfaction
• React faced to dissatisfaction
Results
• + 2 min (18 to 20) despite increasing nb of subjects
• From 2 improvements per month (2018) to 30 (june 2019)
• Monthly individual interview :
• April 2019 – 3 positive subjects versus 13 negative
• September 2019 – 16 positive subjects versus 6 negative
• Recognize and react to dissatisfaction
• Reassured to know that number 1 priority is the work life quality

12. September 2018 – Paper tickets to never forget
What we learned
• Physical materialization for demands
• Standardization of problem solving
• Systematic customer feedback to improve
continuously
• Visual delay thanks to ticket’s color (1 per month)
• What is important for each customer in each
situation
Results
• 0 forgotten demands
• Reminders pushed by the team
• Customers feel considered
• NPS
• October 2018 - NPS = 67
• Since february 2019 – NPS close to 100
• No need to remember lot of things in memory
• Happy to collect good feebacks

13. September 2018 – A matrix to prioritize and reduce backlog
What we learned
• Scoring with customers
• Make clear prioritization within the team
• Make clear prioritization with customers
• A satisfied customer starts to show type 2
then 3 problems
• Set goals on solded per week and analyze
gaps
Results on the Backlog
• December 2018 - 100 tickets
• September 2019 – 60 tickets
• 40 tickets solded by month
• Visual help to argue about delays with difficult customers
• Reduction of backlog means a more reliable system, and so pride of a better quality work
+Recurrence-

14. September 2018 - Oversight and Andons
What we learned
• Importance of the IT System reliability for users
• Detect problems and react before they happen
(anticipation)
• Poka yoke for human mistakes that can not be
prevented otherwise
Results
• Problems solved before users notice its
• Visual problems and no longer suffered
• Recurrence decrease
• Encourage to share skills inside the team
• Reassured about IT System reliability whitout paying attention all the time

15. September 2018 – Alignment on a same common goal (team and customers)
« Reduce support time»
What we learned
• Solve root causes
• Support interventions penalize the work organisation
• Skills management with skill matrix
• Visual management allows each IT member to ask himself the right questions to improve
the global results
Results
• The whole team pulls in the same direction
• Centralize support on one person a day to unload others
• Support time :
• Oct 2018 – 25h per week
• Sept 2019 – 10h per week
• 12 PDCA open hanks to that including 10 closed
• Enrichment of a knowledge base and creation of standards
• Give sense to the team work
• Less overbooked by support
• Satisfaction of working more on added value

16. March 2019 – Software development tracking
What we learned
• Taking requests into account as scored tickets
• Reporting development quality and costs
• Reporting development problems
• Debrief around non-qualities to share learning
• Thoughtful timing (takt) for updates
• Levelling development activity on the week (Heijunka Box)
Results
• Reduce development costs
• May 2019 -- 35h per month
• Sept 2019 – 20h per month
• Patchs after bugs
• May 2019 – 5 per month
• Sept 2019 – 1 per month
• 2 updates per week
• Satisfied customers show more improvement ideas
• Satisfaction of more quality work
• Satisfaction when apps come back to life thanks to users who reclaim its
• Growing competences

17. Avril 2019 – Obeya to work on projects
What we learned
• Focus on one project at a time
• Visualization on project walls to facilitate discussions
• Trying to measure performance in project progress
• Timing (takt) of project points during the week
• Balance time between production and project every day
Results
• 6 projects closed on 2019 - 0 closed on 2018
• Increased attendance at project points
• 2018 – less than 50%
• 2019 – 85%
• Reassuring team work on big subjects

18. To put it in a nutshell
Before After
Support time 25h per week 10h per week
Nb of QVT improvements 2 per month 30 per month
Subjects in monthly interview 3 positive / 13 negative 16 positive / 6 negative
Forgotten demands More than 5 per week 0
NPS customer 67 100
Backlog 100 60
Tickets solded Variable 40 per month
Development costs
(same value added)
35h per month 20h per month
Patchs after bugs 5 per month 1 per month

19. Some verbatim from customers !
• Xavier : « Je suis trop content, ça ressemble enfin à ce que j’avais
imaginé !» parlant de l’application « Protos »
• Karine : « L’équipe est plus présente sur le Gemba, on la sent beaucoup plus
impliquée. »
• Alain : « La réactivité de l’équipe informatique n’est vraiment plus un
problème »
• Sophie : « L’équipe est beaucoup plus réactive et sérieuse qu’avant » « Leur
communication est claire et structurée »

20. And some verbatim from the team !
• Zim : « On se sent vraiment intégré à l’équipe, même quand on a des profils
différents »
• Dylan : « C’est beaucoup plus structuré ». « On n’est plus dérangé tout le
temps grâce à notre nouvelle organisation à plusieurs niveaux. » « On est
au courant de tout. »

21. And especially !
We take pride in our work !
Thanks for attention
Do you have any questions ?