AAR Themes Report: January & February 2024

After Action Review Themes: January & February 2024

This is the monthly update on the themes that came out of our After Action Review sessions in January and February. See below for key themes and opportunities, lessons learned, best practices, recommendations for immediate impact, and actions for long-term improvement.

Areas to Celebrate and Strengthen

In what ways did Stoneridge succeed in our projects this month?

• Client Centricity: For several projects, team members were able to successfully adjust, pivot, and scale their approach to suit the needs of the client / project, keeping in consideration the client's temperament and maturity towards implementations. Whether that meant taking a more staff aug approach, adjusting communication cadences and methods for the client, and holding their clients accountable for their deliverables, these projects further developed and strengthened client relationships with Stoneridge.

• Tenacity: For long-term success, regularly revisiting success metrics and goals as a team served as a helpful and simple reminder of how to stay aligned and on target. Team members found particular success when they prioritized understanding interdependencies between workstreams, had clear visibility into the overall project plan, and established frequent communication cadences early on. This allowed for more efficient and effective collaborative and asynchronous work.

• Technical Excellence: Our teams took unfamiliar / new projects as opportunities to learn and hone their own skillsets while working through challenges together. We are also discovering increased efficiencies in teams that have aligned usage expectations of Azure DevOps for solutioning throughout the project. 

Key Themes and Opportunities

What are some key areas in which we can improve?

Resourcing and Internal Team Alignment at Project Onset: When turnaround time between when the SOW was signed to the start of the engagement was quick, challenges arose in resourcing, pulling in team members that were already committed to other projects, and readjusting schedules to ensure the appropriate team was put together.

• These quick project onsets often meant that the internal kickoff was rushed, deprioritized, or skipped. The internal kickoff aims to ensure there is alignment with the project team regarding roles and responsibilities, project approach and objectives, and internal communications, and not being able to do this internal kickoff contributed to confusion within the team.

Scope and Project Complexity: Following the client’s Roadmap, the implementation/certain development and integration elements was more complex than anticipated. As a result, the scope of the project changed fluidly, with initial scope not matching the intended timeline, resulting in some cuts. This also translated to significant budget pressure throughout the implementation—balancing billable hours, project work, and adherence to the original scope and timeline. 

Client Maturity and Implementation Readiness: Due to unique circumstances surrounding client project history, some projects were unable follow traditional implementation processes. Challenges such as lack of internal alignment for client teams and leadership, late involvement of relevant SMEs, client laxity around timelines, and discrepancies on the client side regarding project approach made it difficult to guide the client to adhere to the Proven Process.

Acting as Sub-Contractors: We gained valuable insight on the differences between approaching an implementation as the single or primary partner as opposed to sub-contracting. When Stoneridge is not the primary partner, the degree to which the Proven Process can be followed, as well as the way the delivery team interacts with the client, has to be adjusted.

Best Practices & Call To Action

What are some recommendations that we can apply for immediate impact?

Preparing the Client for Change: When discussing future work with clients, conversations around how to approach change management, sponsorship, and communication can help prepare their teams for the implementation. Discussions on possible resistance and the importance of approaching these projects not only from a tactical but strategic perspective can help mitigate that resistance and prepare the client for how this may impact progress on the project as well.

Best Practices for Stoneridge Team Alignment: A clear understanding of roles and responsibilities, along with visibility into timeline, upcoming events or milestones, and progress in other areas helps facilitate collaboration and a more unified approach to a project.

• Facilitating a kickoff for each module at the beginning of each new phase, or a regrouping event at the close of major milestones, can help clarify and define roles, responsibilities, workloads, ways of working, and expectations moving forward.

• Defining future meeting cadences, with clear expectations on meeting objectives discussed with the group (and documented clearly in the meeting agenda/calendar invite) should also occur. This provides team members the opportunity to appropriately prepare for meetings and enables more efficient use of team member time while maximizing efficiency and collaboration.

Preparing for Sub-Contracting Engagements: As we begin to think about future sub-contracting engagements, it is critical we establish clear metrics for success in these projects that take differences from an implementation Stoneridge is the primary partner into consideration. This includes: 

• How we negotiate our processes/approach in a subcontracting engagement compared to a regular implementation 

• How we set up a project ahead of time, including establishing billing rates and conversion rates, expectations from the primary partner and the formal delegation of responsibilities between parties

• How we set expectations internally with our delivery teams regarding the team’s goals, how our responsibilities differ in subcontracting projects, and how we measure success internally 

Additionally, it is recommended that, at the onset of every subcontracting project or new project phase, the team utilizes an internal kickoff session to gain alignment on the above elements, highlighting the differences between expectations from an implementation where Stoneridge is the primary partner, utilizing our Proven Process; vs where we’re acting as a sub-contractor and what modifications to our process we need to make. 

CI Action Items

What action is Continuous Improvement taking for long-term impact?

Resourcing, Onboarding, and Roles & Responsibilities

Having the appropriate team members assigned to a project at the right times can have a significant impact on the overall experience of an engagement. It is particularly important at project onset where critical internal alignment activities occur—such as defining roles, responsibilities, methodology, and overall project approach.  

• The ongoing Operations Enablement initiative aims to centralize resourcing operations and processes, including gaining alignment on how we set up projects and soft + hard book resources in anticipation for client engagements to allow for smoother project start.

• The Proven Process Baselining effort aims to clarify roles and responsibilities within various parts of our Proven Process to help facilitate more effective and efficient internal collaboration. As part of each phase stage gate and prep for the next phase, guidelines and templates are being created around internal communications cadences and creating built-in opportunities to regroup at the end of every key milestone to iteratively ensure roles/responsibilities/workloads are appropriately assigned across team members.

• As part of the Proven Process Baselining initiative, the ADO Usage & Standardization workstream aims to create and clarify cross-functional baseline standards, templates, and guidelines to streamline Stoneridge usage of Azure DevOps on projects. This includes guidelines on how to set expectations and provide training for client participation in ADO. Outcomes will be shared and implemented this year in collaboration with the PMO, including guidelines and training on how to approach the setup and usage of ADO for greater consistencies from project to project.

Scope and Estimation

When beginning a project, there are certain complexities that only become apparent once further analysis/discovery begins. This can include adjustments to what was initially estimated or scoped. To accommodate potential changes, SOW assumptions should be written to minimize misinterpretation by the client. If we cannot ensure the SOW language is explicit, having conversations to help set expectations early can help avoid confusion later.

• The Operations Enablement project is working toward a common process for estimating and creation, review, and approval of SOWs. Outcomes from that project will be shared and implemented this year, providing guidelines on how to approach estimating and the creation of SOWs to reinforce shared expectations and minimize miscommunication with the client.

How can I track progress on AAR action items?

• Subscribe to "Related Roadmap Items" by clicking the hyperlinks in the margin to receive notifications of updates and announcements for the ongoing CI initiatives that map to the above AAR action items.

• Please reach out to Emily Cottam or Brooke McKeever in Continuous Improvement with any questions or feedback regarding our After Action Review objectives, processes, or outcomes.