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“We don’t just use IBM Targetprocess to manage work packages, we use it to develop our OKRs [objectives and key results] to achieve alignment with a common, strategic goal. Historically, our adherence to roadmap KPI was 50%-60%. After implementing SAFe and IBM Targetprocess, this KPI is consistently over 90%.”
ETAS had transitioned from waterfall to team-level Agile, but leaders missed the transparency they needed to manage their complex portfolio and fully exploit the benefits of Agile processes. By implementing IBM Targetprocess, they received a strong SaaS platform for enterprise Agile planning that enabled them to:
ETAS is a leading software company headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH. The company provides solutions for the realization of software-defined vehicles. ETAS’ portfolio includes software development tools, software testing solutions, automotive middleware, data acquisition & processing tools, authoring & diagnostic solutions, automotive cybersecurity solutions, and end-to-end engineering and consulting services.
As a software company, ETAS is no stranger to Agile. Years ago, the organization began the transition from a traditional waterfall methodology to Agile at the team level. They had several Scrum teams operating across the company; however, these teams used different tools to manage their work, and Release Trains were managed using MS Project.
This heterogeneous tool landscape created several challenges. Managers had very limited visibility into what each team was working on, and teams managed their backlog using sticky notes, which made it difficult to align the work of teams with strategic objectives.
“The problem was that the work of the individual teams didn’t really fit together to form larger solutions,” says Richard Mutschler, Head of Lean Agile Centre of Excellence (LACE) at ETAS. “And our customers need these larger solutions to solve their problems.”
To address this challenge, ETAS implemented SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework). SAFe is a standard framework of processes and workflow patterns designed to optimize work for teams and scale Agile practices.
Moving to SAFe, however, was only part of the solution. ETAS soon realized that implementing SAFe without a common platform for enterprise Agile planning did not allow them to manage Agile processes effectively for their complex portfolio. For this capability, they chose IBM Targetprocess.
IBM Targetprocess enables managers to see everything Agile teams are working on. Every team member uses the platform to manage their own work items, allowing managers to view the status of every project, manage workload, and reassign developers to higher-priority projects for alignment with ETAS’ strategic objectives.
“We don’t just use IBM Targetprocess to manage work packages,” says Mutschler. “We use it to develop our OKRs [objectives and key results] to achieve alignment with a common, strategic goal. Historically, our adherence to roadmap KPI was 50%-60%. After implementing SAFe and IBM Targetprocess, this KPI is consistently over 90%.”
According to Mutschler, the transparency provided by IBM Targetprocess has been a tremendous value to the organization for many other reasons. It serves as a common platform for developers, reducing the overhead of supporting a wide range of tools and allowing them to manage the company’s complex project portfolio more effectively than they could before.
This transparency, along with other key features of IBM Targetprocess, has simplified the development process and enabled more effective PI planning.
“Transparency of alignment is the main value, especially when we do PI planning,” Mutschler says. “It’s a great tool with all the planning boards we have to visualize dependencies so that everyone sees the part of the work that they need in the end.”
IBM Targetprocess has helped produce important operational improvements. It has enabled ETAS to lower the time it takes to deliver a customer inquiry significantly. It has allowed the company to switch from manual testing to automated testing, which has enabled them to save a lot of time in the testing process and gain efficiency. And it has given ETAS a transparent system that allows the company to optimize its processes and improve cooperation.
These benefits have made ETAS’ development teams more productive and led to increased confidence from customers regarding the reliability and quality of the products being delivered.
ETAS has made vast improvements in the company’s Agile transformation using IBM Targetprocess, but more is yet to come. For the company’s next iteration, leaders are looking to expand the use of IBM Targetprocess, and to implement comprehensive, overarching portfolio management for the entire company.
When asked for any advice for others seeking to implement Agile practices, Mutschler adds, “Be patient. When it comes to agility, mindset and principles are very important, because in the end, it’s about the way we work together, how we lead the company, and how we make decisions.”
Building an environment where this mindset could grow was essential for the success at ETAS, and IBM Targetprocess was a key element. “When we show colleagues the potential of IBM Targetprocess, they say, ‘I want that. You’ve got a cool product, and I want to have it, and please make sure I can get it as quickly as possible.’ We have achieved such a high level of acceptance that we have a waiting list for new users.”
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