Mastering the Coordination Challenge

In today’s fast-paced business world, large organisations often face the tough challenge of balancing growth with efficiency. It's common for employees to find themselves overwhelmed by coordination tasks rather than focusing on innovation. This is a familiar story for many in the industry, and it's the tale of how we transformed a cumbersome, coordination-heavy process into a streamlined, agile operation.

The Coordination Challenge

"The key to success is not just setting a goal, but aligning your entire organisation towards achieving it. Coordination is the glue that holds everything together." – John C. Maxwell

Coordination within a large organisation can be a major hurdle. Imagine trying to launch a new service that requires input from multiple departments: engineering, marketing, sales, finance, operations, security, legal, customer support, and many others. Each department has its own procedures and timelines, turning the coordination process into a complex and time-consuming effort.

For example, the engineering team might be stuck waiting for clear requirements from the product team, which are often delayed due to extended discussions and approvals. Marketing can’t plan campaigns without a confirmed launch date, which remains uncertain due to these delays. Legal reviews add another layer of complexity, requiring careful consideration and multiple rounds of approval. Meanwhile, customer support teams are often left to prepare for the new product at the last minute, leading to inadequate training and service issues at launch.?

Understanding the Root Causes

The root of these coordination challenges lies in several fundamental issues that are typical in large, complex organisations. These problems create an environment where extensive coordination is not just necessary, but inevitable, ultimately hindering efficiency and stifling innovation.

"The danger of bureaucracy is that it enforces a rigid hierarchy that stifles creativity and innovation." – Howard Schultz

One major issue is bureaucracy. Large organisations, especially those that have been around for a long time, often have heavy bureaucratic processes. These involve multiple layers of approvals and sign-offs, slowing down decision-making and project progress. Another significant factor is organisational silos. Departments often work in isolation, each focused on their own goals, which limits cross-functional collaboration and leads to inefficiencies and duplicated efforts.

Many organisations also struggle with legacy systems and processes. Relying on outdated systems and traditional project management approaches makes it difficult to adapt to more modern, agile methodologies. This old infrastructure demands significant coordination to align teams and processes. Moreover, managing a large number of stakeholders with different interests and priorities can complicate the process even further, requiring extensive effort to align everyone toward a common goal.

"In the age of technology, disconnects happen not just between people, but also between systems. When your IT systems don’t talk to each other, neither will your teams." – Satya Nadella

The rigid hierarchical structure in many large organisations also plays a role. When decision-making is concentrated at the top, it can take longer to move projects forward as approvals must pass through several levels. Additionally, disparate IT systems that don’t integrate well add another layer of complexity, requiring significant coordination to ensure everything works together smoothly. Finally, there’s often a resistance to change. Cultural resistance to adopting new methodologies and technologies means more effort is needed to manage change and bring everyone on board.

At the core, these issues stem from a lack of autonomy in decision-making and a convoluted process involving numerous stakeholders. Delivery partners may take the safest route to protect their contracts, leading to delays and finger-pointing. Teams working in silos, driven by their own agendas, result in further inefficiencies.

Addressing the Coordination Challenge.

In one of my recent assignments, we faced the very exact issue -The coordination challenge. Software engineers’ work overlapped, making independent team progress difficult. Requirements, pending decisions, required actions, risks & issues, and progress visibility was spread thin across various word / excel documents, confluence pages, and various work items in tools like Jira/ ADO (Azure DevOps), leading to inefficiency and confusion. Different Teams followed different methodologies such as Scrum, Waterfall, Spotify Model, Sprints with different timelines and with variations that suited respective team hierarchy and their SI partner.

Recognising the detrimental impact of these coordination issues, I took several strategic steps to address them:

Embracing the Agile Mindset

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." – Charles Darwin

First, we embraced an agile mindset. Moving away from a strict waterfall approach, we adopted agile frameworks like SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), which significantly reduced the need for extensive coordination. We trained our teams on SAFe, tailored to their specific roles, and made a foundational shift towards iterative development, regular stand-ups, sprint planning, and reviews. This fostered better collaboration and provided a clear view of the product architecture and delivery roadmap.

Streamlining Processes and Backlogs

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." – Leonardo da Vinci

We streamlined our processes by restructuring the scattered programme backlog. Previously, tasks, actions, decisions, and requirements were spread across multiple platforms, creating confusion. We consolidated everything into a single ADO backlog with a newly defined structure and processes, creating a continuous, singular reference point for the programme. This brought clarity and focus, essential for maintaining momentum in agile practices.

Forming Cross-Functional Teams

"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself." – Henry Ford

We formed cross-functional teams, bringing together all necessary roles, including product owners, operations, UX design, architecture, and development. Each team focused on a specific part of value chain, such as ordering, order processing, or upgrade. This approach not only improved efficiency but also enhanced the quality of output by giving each team a clear, manageable scope. It also helped us move towards a flatter programme structure, where decision-making was more distributed, speeding up processes and empowering lower-level managers.

Leveraging Microservices Strategy

"Modularity empowers agility." – Jeff Sutherland

We leveraged our organisation’s microservices strategy. We aimed to create microservices for various channels within our Business Support Systems (BSS) and Operations Support Systems (OSS) development. This strategy was key to ensuring our systems were modular, scalable, and easier to manage. It allowed us to break down complex systems into manageable parts, each developed and deployed independently but integrated seamlessly.

Securing Support and Driving Change

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new." – Socrates (attributed)

Securing support from IT and business leadership was also crucial. I sought approval for the budget needed to train our teams on SAFe and gained acknowledgment that changing our delivery framework would initially impact programme timelines. This support was vital for a successful transition, allowing us to work more effectively and start delivering value early.

The Role of Technology

Finally, technology played a critical role. Using tools like ADO (or Jira & alike) for a unified backlog and leveraging items like Themes, EPICs, Features, and Stories helped us manage both technical and business requirements. Communication tools like Teams, Confluence, and Miro Boards greatly improved communication and knowledge sharing among team members. We also employed CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) and automation tools to enhance development, automate testing, and streamline release deployment, reducing the need for manual coordination.

Conclusion

Addressing coordination challenges in large organisations isn’t easy. It requires a fundamental shift in mindset, process, and technology. By adopting an agile framework, restructuring backlogs, forming cross-functional teams, and leveraging modern technology, we were able to turn the tide. We reduced the layers of coordination, enabled more autonomous teams, and significantly shortened project delivery times. With less time spent on administrative tasks, our teams had more time to focus on innovative solutions. Empowering teams and cutting through bureaucratic red tape also improved morale and engagement, creating a more motivated workforce.

If your organisation is facing similar challenges, I’d love to hear from you. Let’s connect and explore how we can drive transformation together, improving operational efficiency while fostering a culture of innovation and responsiveness to better meet market demands and customer needs.

Share your insights, experiences, and questions in the comments below. And if you found value in this article, don’t forget to like and share.

- Umesh Mehendale

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