EADS Defence and Communications Systems Ltd

Engagement 1: EADS DCS UK had an issue with a long-standing programme being delivered to a highly documentation-centric waterfall process. Many change requests were being received and new requirements were being requested simultaneously. In addition, internal corporate compliance practices were also being imposed on the programme. These factors were leading to a paralysis in delivery, so Agilier was asked to intervene to improve the delivery of business value.

Working closely with key project members, we were able to determine the root causes of the problems and produced a delivery method that incorporated and aligned all the programme and corporate governance mechanisms, as well as some agile delivery techniques. Hence, we were able to:

  • introduce new Agile working practices to the delivery team in a planned and non-threatening manner;
  • bring together the programme stakeholders to prioritise the features that would bring the greatest business benefit;
  • educate all parties to a new regime of regular delivery of system features.

Engagment 2: Agilier provided the only UK representative on an Anglo-Franco-German programme to harmonise system development processes across EADS Europe. By using our experience of agile methodology design, we ensured that the process was as non-prescriptive as possible, potentially saving up to 50% on programme costs.

Engagement 3: EADS DCS UK was set a demanding timetable by its parent company for the introduction of the enterprise resource planning system, SAP. This affected every key function in the company and Agilier was asked to ensure that the core business processes were correctly implemented. By holding a series of facilitated workshops with the key stakeholders, we were able to perform a business change analysis, ensuring that the core processes of the core projects would be covered by the new system. In addition, we produced a an acceptance test plan and a communication/training plan.

Testimonial

“Agilier was an integral part of my team installing SAP. Their experience in managing business processes made them an ideal candidate to manage functional integration thereby reducing a significant risk to the business. This involved them working with the workstream leads and developing a high-level integrated businesses process against which we planned our test programme.”

Chris Davies, Programme Manager, EADS Defence and Communications Systems