How did Pearson transform their service model?

How did Pearson transform their service model? 

Pearson’s Successmaker: Putting the Customer First in Transforming Product Development Processes. Raghu, T.S.; Sellman, Collin. Case No. 9B11E040. Published 2/23/2012, Richard Ivey School of Business, 2011.

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R1In this week’s case study, Greg Adams-Woodford joined the company, Pearson was midway through its first significant upgrade to its SuccessMaker software. The update did not go as planned despite the best efforts of everyone concerned, and as a result Pearson switched from the old waterfall approach to the new agile development process. The agile technique enabled Pearson to have a client-driven approach to development, which allowed them to satisfy consumer expectations more effectively than they had in the past. As a result of its emphasis on quick iterative sprints, the agile approach also contributed to a decrease in the expenses associated with modifications to the product’s features midway through the development process. Teams at Pearson were able to use the agile methodology to modify, create, and prioritize product features in response to input from product managers and consumers. The method was made backward scalable by employing the agile paradigm, which Pearson recognized as another benefit. In other words, as more client needs poured in, it got simpler and easier to design the program.Reference:Raghu, T. S., & Sellman, C. S. (2011). Pearson’s Sucessmaker: Putting the Customer First in Transforming Product Development Process. Harvard Business School Case W, 11744.

R2Pearson Success – how did they transform their service model:In an effort to enhance performance and development of Pearson’s SuccessMaker product a transformation of the organizations service model was implemented. A change of this nature can often be a difficult task as individuals may be resistant to change (Raghu & Sellman, 2012)..  The current service model focused on a traditional development waterfall process. This process had its challenges as customers had grown frustrated with broken promises and missed expectations of the SuccessMaker product (Raghu & Sellman, 2012). Greg Adam-Woodford and his team worked to introduce and implement Agile methodology. Agile focuses on short development iterations and communication over documentation (Raghu & Sellman, 2012).            Certain steps were taken by Adam-Woodford and his team to successfully transform to the new service model. Steps included training staff appropriately, leveraging automation tools to improve efficiency, emphasized change of thinking, communicated regularly, foster collaboration, integrate tools, ensure flexibility, and focused on the end product (March 20, n.d.).            Changing to the Agile development methodologies proved successful  as since the change, the code base for SuccessMaker was cut by half while the number of features increased by up to 75% (Raghu & Sellman, 2012).References:March 20, M. R. (n.d.). 8 ways to ease the transition from waterfall to agile. SmartBear.Com. Retrieved August 6, 2022, from https://smartbear.com/blog/agile-vs-waterfall/Raghu, T. S. & Sellman, C. S. (2011). Pearson’s Sucessmaker: Putting the Customer First in Transforming Product Development Process. Harvard Business School Case W, 11744.