Modernizing the SDLC

An F500 CPG company partnered with ZENDA to modernize its software development lifecycle as part of a critical effort to optimize for cost efficiency. The result was a deepened understanding of the product’s current development pipeline, a picture of the significant time and cost savings a DevSecOps pipeline would yield, and a detailed roadmap for modifying the current pipeline.

4

Process issues discovered

3

Pipelines mapped

$400K

Immediate savings opportunity identified

$17MM

Future savings opportunity identified

Solution

Through a 4-day stakeholder alignment workshop and substantial in-depth interviews with digital product teams, ZENDA mapped 3 distinct development pipelines for 8 digital product teams, calculated DORA metrics for those pipelines, and illuminated the variance among them. Our team then leveraged conversations with client leadership to diagnose the core business case for piloting DevSecOps with one of these teams. We also diagnosed the types of developers across the broader organization, highlighting the tools and resources they need to succeed in the DevSecOps environment, including easy-access sandboxes, centralized documentation, and increased support from business leads.

Result

With standardized PR reviews, test-driven development, well-defined QA guidelines, and the automation of change requests and system integration testing, ZENDA identified opportunities for $400K immediate and $17MM future yoy savings.

Industry

Consumer Packaged Goods

Capabilities

Technology Operations & Innovation

Engagement Deep Dive

It’s common for companies to put the customer first, to be “customer-obsessed,” as it’s sometimes said. In practice, this requires thoroughly understanding who the customer is: what they think, feel, do, want, struggle with, and beyond. It’s much less common for companies to turn this empathetic lens onto their own workforce, to invest in an understanding that goes beyond an annual survey. Yet, as a recent client of ours saw, with this investment comes the means for large gains in employee satisfaction, buy-in, and productivity.

As part of a client’s larger initiative to reinvent their software development lifecycle, our team was tasked with understanding their developer community, from how much they felt their organization empowered their programming practices to how they in fact went about their work. Our insights revealed strategic actions that aligned leadership across numerous functions and positioned those leaders to accelerate the organization’s reinvention, reducing the risk of noncompliance and the cycle of trial-and-error in which so many other organizations become caught.

These gains are due to our client understanding how to meet their employees where they are. They know how to do so not just for their developer community broadly, but for the unique types of individuals that live within it. Teams are being carefully constructed, tailor-made tools are being implemented, and a learning pipeline is being shaped with distinct pathways that meet the unique needs of their people.

This is the edge that a close, qualitative look at your workforce can provide. You’re able to see who your employees are as they see themselves. And through that perspective, you’re able to position them—and your organization—for transformative success.