THE CHALLENGE
Due to significant changes in the generation and retail side of the electric utilities industry over the last decade, there is an increased urgency for energy providers to deliver products and services to customers quickly to stay competitive. In Texas, these significant changes include the deregulation of the electric utilities in markets like ERCOT, which has created fierce competition to serve as a customer’s retail electric provider (REP).
REPs have come up with incalculable variations of offerings to entice customers to select them as their provider. On the generation side, sources like wind, solar, and battery are decreasing in cost and increasing in efficiency significantly faster than forecasted. A generator’s ability to quickly adjust the make-up of their fleet will be critical to their success moving forward.
It’s this speed to market and responsiveness to internal and external customer needs that made the Agile methodology attractive to our client.
Due to significant changes in the generation and retail side of the electric utilities industry over the last decade, there is an increased urgency for energy providers to deliver products and services to customers quickly to stay competitive.
OUR APPROACH
Sendero had a long-standing relationship with this energy client and was tapped to help the client transform its Technology Services from the Waterfall method to the Agile method – a daunting change management effort that requires fundamentally changing the way you think about work, deliver work, and work together within an organization.
The team started by establishing a subset of client subject matter experts through Scrum/Agile certifications and training; these individuals then piloted the Agile Methodology by running their individual projects and programs in accordance with Agile principles.
After experiencing success on those efforts, client leadership decided to make the transition to Agile as the default methodology for delivery – a shift where Delivery and Operations no longer organized based on project or operational work, but instead became Agile teams based around core products and services.
Product Owners were selected and trained, and Certified Scrum Masters were assigned to teams and given the responsibility to train those teams on Agile. New processes and ceremonies were developed to allow for Agile to scale and ensure teams had the ability to request work from one another. Impacts to existing Accounting, Compliance, Governance, and Strategic planning processes all had to be considered and cared for as a result of this change. Then we started sprinting!
