A dedicated client delivery team for healthcare BI

Solution

To solve the issue of multiple task streams, Itransition suggested forming a dedicated client delivery team (CDT) as part of the customer’s global delivery team. The CDT consists of on-demand operational support developers and PMs that communicate with the customer’s BAs, AMs, developers, and testers. The CDT reaches out to Itransition’s product team developers when they have questions about clients’ products.

Partnership principles and outcomes

Mutually beneficial partnership
As partners of the customer, we view their success as our own and consult them on products and processes to make their business models as competitive as possible. In turn, Itransition, as a service provider, gets valuable expertise in personalizing services for multiple clients in line with their specific business needs.

Open communication
Working on the project, we resolve conflicts and find compromises by considering different points of view, discussing them openly, and being empathetic to the needs expressed by each client. Open communication, along with positive results of subprojects and consistent quality of service, helps us establish trust and transparency. Being always available and timely answering questions and requests makes the customer feel confident in the services our CDT provides.

A single point of contact
We provide a single point of contact for the customer, who directs team members to other experts only when necessary. The single-point-of-contact approach streamlines communication, helps minimize delays and misunderstandings, and allows us to avoid information silos despite multiple collaboration channels.

Client delivery approach

Change requests

The CDT positions itself as a co-creator of the products we have developed together with the customer early in the project. When a change request comes to the CDT, the team analyzes it from the perspective of the product, as well as a specific client need, to offer an optimal solution. If a different approach is better long term, we prepare detailed argumentation for it. We also provide a set of estimates for each proposed option with lists of pros and cons, possible complications, and risks. All change requests are reviewed and approved both by the customer and our product team and aligned with the web product deployment schedule.

While planning new implementations, the team considers the following:

• Solution longevity
• Ease of further support and maintenance
• Cost-effectiveness
• Time-efficiency
• Stress-free upscaling
• Tech-savviness
• Market compatibility

Bug fixes

The CDT uses a Kanban pull system for Operational support and has achieved fast turnaround times. They have also set up the following response times for requests: 8 hours for blocker requests, 12 hours for major ones, and 24 hours for minor ones in OS.

For bug fixing, we set up a simplified delivery process. When bugs require outside help, a CDT developer and QA reach out to the product team. If we have confirmed a product bug, it's reported to the bug reports channel and prioritized for the product team to take on and raise a ticket.

Code review

The CDT formalized the internal code review to utilize best practices for code quality, smooth out project onboarding for new people, and ensure our developers are constantly building their coding skills. We also oversee code review implementation on the project. 

Additionally, we have introduced an internal review for SQL and emphasized the importance of SQL guidelines to provide the cleanest code possible. Finally, we set up the CDT code review process for the multi-tenant web asset development to ensure the code we add to the product is high quality and efficient. The CDT also holds internal retrospective meetings to discuss the arising issues and find mitigation strategies to avoid these situations in the future.

Requirements gathering

For all our projects, we adopt the Fail Early principle by testing change request ideas using investigations and estimates. All of the above involves prioritizing detailed requirements gathering and in-depth scope discussions. Ambiguous requests that are open to several interpretations can lead to unexpected outcomes as well as time and budget losses. To prevent misinterpretations, we suggested a new approach to detailed requirements gathering where we allocate more time to scope estimates, checks, reviews, and approval. The customer’s support managers and BAs studied, tweaked and approved the approach, with the documented guideline shared with our knowledge base.

Project management

Itransition’s CDT always opts for flexible and adaptive frameworks to promptly tweak offerings in line with the needs of the customer’s clients. To consolidate project delivery that consists of different size and scope change requests, we have adopted a case-by-case service delivery strategy using project management methodologies.

The CDT has to set up complex processes to meet the needs of each specific client. We also take the processes each client has set up, the processes within the CDT, and the communication flow with the product team. So, for each client, the framework is different, so we tweak it when needed.

For each project, we also choose the most appropriate project management methodology. The choice between Scrum or Kanban methodology depends on client needs, such as the work volume and number of requests, the internal processes established within the client’s teams, or the pharma niche the client works in. So when the client wants to review their methodology approach, we analyze the process and suggest the most suitable option.

Due to our dedicated developers being able to quickly handle any client request, launching new feature development takes two weeks instead of three months before the CDT creation.

Project documentation

The CDT centralizes all project assets and updates them regularly, paying particular attention to knowledge sharing, retention, and transfer. When client teams change, our knowledge base serves as a reference point for newcomers. Regardless of team changes on any side, the knowledge remains intact, allowing us to keep high quality of service.

We create detailed project documentation and articles covering all development aspects and processes and hold weekly knowledge transfer sessions where team members share know-how tips and workarounds for recently resolved issues. Recordings of such meetings are stored and grouped into categories in the knowledge base. 

The product team also regularly covers the questions and topics the CDT needs to catch up on during knowledge-sharing sessions. The list of new areas to cover is communicated to the product team managers every other Thursday for future scheduling. Knowledge-sharing sessions also include backlog reviews and new feature presentations. The CDT also has regular learning sessions on different topics, with the customer’s experts involved in such knowledge-sharing sessions as well.

Internship

Itransition developers created internship tutorials to share the knowledge newcomers need to work on a project. For experts who successfully passed the internship period, we also introduced a mentoring system, and for new team members, we created an onboarding plan. 

The internship program includes a detailed plan of topics and materials and practical training sessions that team members conduct several times a week. It also involves collecting feedback from managers and discussing the results of the newcomers’ work. Thanks to the program, we onboarded six new specialists who completed the internship and became part of the team. We also collect feedback on the process itself and introduce regular improvements to it.

The internship program helps us ensure project development goes according to plan and within the expected time frame. For the client, this was seen as one of our advantages, as it enabled us to objectively evaluate the work of a new employee (via a monthly productivity report) and help them become part of the team.

Results

During the collaboration with the customer as part of their global delivery team, Itransition’s CDT became a reliable partner forming a close, trustful relationship not only with the customer but also with their clients. The team provided simultaneous support to 10+ corporate clients with their own specifics, complex processes, and different PM methodologies (Scrum, Kanban) to teams spread globally. We have achieved the following results:

• Sped up change request delivery 3 times
• Achieved 8 times faster launch of new features 
• Separated client requests from product development, ensuring reliable planning and successful delivery