Rescuing a Project in Crisis: A Case Study in Effective Usage of LEAP

Background

Our team was tasked with developing a complex business workflow system for a medical device manufacturing company. The customer opted for a Low-Code/No-Code (LCNC) solution, and my company won the project bid.

An 10+ members team was assigned, with an 8-month completion goal. However, after 10 months, less than 60% of the work was done. The project was in serious trouble and had been escalated by a customer sponsor to our company’s CTO.

Challenge

I was brought in by my unit head to get the project back on track, with a 12-week deadline to complete the remaining work. Essentially, I was dropped into the middle of a crisis. I decided to use the LEAP Framework to guide the project back to success.

Application of LEAP framework

Initial Assessment and Learnings

After discussions with various stakeholders, I assessed the situation through the lenses of Quality, Cost, and Schedule.

Quality

• No version control
  • Impact: Discrepancies between key specifications used by the development team and the Business Analyst (BA); High defect count and rework.
• Specifications and expected behaviors were shared through email, chat, and sometimes orally
  • Impact: Missed requirements and conflicts between the project team and the customer business team.
• Lack of focus on UI/UX
  • Impact: Poor planning and delays in UI/UX development.
• Excessive out-of-the-box (OOTB) customizations
  • Impact: Customization led to performance and maintenance issues.

Cost

• Numerous requirement changes requested by the business team post sign-off
  • Impact: Unaccounted efforts and delays.
• High number of test combination scenarios
  • Impact: Defects slipped through to the customer due to inadequate testing.
• Excessive evidence preparation demanded by the customer team
  • Impact: Unaccounted efforts and delays.

Schedule

• Large user stories
  • Impact: User stories were split between sprints and became unmanageable.
• Prolonged refinement schedules
  • Impact: Delays in accommodating all requirements left little time for development.

Other Issues

• Trust deficit between the customer and the project team.
• Unresolved technical challenges and high technical debt.
• Too frequent meetings with few conclusions.
• Team members uncomfortable communicating with certain colleagues.

Action: Governance Improvement

Kanban Board

I encouraged the team to adopt Kanban-based daily status meetings. Members only spoke when there were issues with particular tasks. If tasks were progressing as expected, updates were documented in the task detail section.

Note: I strongly believe in using Kanban boards for project tracking. They provide transparency, improve accountability, and reduce stand-up meeting time.

Meeting Improvements

I restructured the number of participants required for each meeting type and encouraged members to leave once their part was done.

Note: In Japan, it is common to attend all meetings and remain present for the entire duration.

Customer Negotiations

I handled challenging negotiations with the customer, such as deciding between OOTB design and customizations and getting credit for unapproved changes.

Note: In Japan, it is difficult to say no to a customer. A detailed case is needed to do so.

Action: Technical Improvement

Design Decision

I acted as an arbitrator (as required) during design decisions. This improved team bonding and the team’s risk-taking ability.

Testing

I conducted random manual testing of each sprint deliverable and provided feedback to the team.

UI Test Automation

I developed an automation program to validate over 10,000 UI combinations and automatically generated test evidence.

Conclusion

By applying both technical enhancements and governance improvements, the quality of deliverables rapidly improved. Team morale saw a positive shift overall, even though we occasionally had to work late into the night. Despite these challenges, we stayed focused on our goals and ultimately received the final completion sign-off from the customer in the 13th week after I joined the team.