Learning To Manage Change Inside Hybrid Work Environments

By nature, complex organizations have the constant challenge of staying on top of everything to remain competitive. Keeping up with numerous intersecting products and projects can be a leader’s nightmare. One thing going wrong can reverberate across projects and teams, creating adverse downstream effects, a diminishing value proposition, operational confusion, and even project failure.

Companies have had to reimagine how they can best operate, often restructuring to hybrid or remote work models following the domino effects of Covid-19. In the face of uncertainty, employees began weighing the value of work-life balance and the productivity attached to their work locations.

Inevitably there is a delicate arrangement between work productivity as an organization, the desire of employees to work remotely, and maintaining in-office and productive relationships with coworkers. This is where hybrid models find a balance.

According to a recent Time magazine article citing Stanford professor of economics Nicholas Bloom, hybrid is becoming a preferred model embraced by both companies and workers. Bloom's professional survey contends that quit rates are down by 35% in hybrid environments, with 80% of workers wishing for their colleagues to be available on the days they come to work, indicating a desire for team interaction.

Gallop reports that hybrid work is expected to increase to 55% in 2022 and beyond, with 60% of those polled wishing to adopt a long-term hybrid work arrangement. The shifting sentiment and model are putting organizations on alert. Companies are now looking to optimize their strategic project and portfolio management capabilities to get clear visibility across all projects and successfully deliver value aligned with business objectives.

To gain a better perspective of managing inside changing workforce models, this reporter sat down with Phil Reynolds, founder, and CEO of DevStride, a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that connects strategy, planning, and execution with significant insights across all workstreams within an organization.

Lessons

Rod Berger: Given the needs of a very fluid and dynamic work situation, how have you thought about answering the proverbial bell as a business owner and a solutions provider?

Phil Reynolds: Like many business owners, I look back and think about past challenges. Before launching DevStride, I was the founder and CEO of a thriving insurance technology. As an innovative SaaS provider, the company delivered a broad offering of software products and projects for hundreds of clients. But as successfully and quickly as the company was growing, it was often a nightmare for our team to collect and analyze information to see the true state of work across different projects, products, and client implementations. Data points were dispersed, systems were fragmented, and the big picture proved nearly impossible to see.

I am proud of my former team for their performance. We went over 10 years without churning a single customer due to a great product. We had tremendous employees with sheer determination. But our growth outpaced our project and portfolio management capabilities.

Eventually, our tools (Jira and Wrike) and agile framework failed to result in a critical project deadline, leading a significant customer to terminate an implementation worth several million dollars in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). The biggest problem? No one could see the cascading product delays that led to this failure until it was too late. Our team was devastated, and our investors were understandably irritated.

I believe the primary reason for these failures and losses is that it's difficult to track and detect pain points and issues before problems arise. So, after using multiple project and portfolio management solutions that failed to meet our needs, I brought in a group of like-minded and equally motivated agile practitioners to solve the problem and founded DevStride.

Team Agility

Berger: It appears that global IT spending is expected to continue to increase, with Gartner predicting $4.5 trillion by the end of 2022. What is it about your company that will better help manage the growing demands of the hybrid work model?

Reynolds: It’s my perspective that the value proposition will appeal to managers of agile teams at complex organizations, especially in software development. Traditional project management solutions are typically based on answering the "what" of a project. They track the metrics of each project to give the team an idea of their progress. But our approach is different. It is not project-based but value-based. Its features are purpose-built to promote work alignment and collaboration across otherwise siloed teams in a value stream.

As a group, we have integrated workstreams to see how work flows across a company. It helps managers align work to value and merge fragmented tools and workflows into a single solution, providing an accurate health assessment.

Macro Approach in a Micro World

Berger: Organizations often have a variety of goals, from the company's overall objectives to the day-to-day project operations. How is your company blending these needs?

Reynolds: Progress and performance of an organization's macro and micro data are filtered through the lens of its objectives and core business functions. This way, the team, and leadership can see their progress and performance indicators and how well their efforts contribute to their company's mission, objectives, and projects.

The approach is powerful, and all is achieved in one workspace. Removing friction within the entire project and portfolio management process empowers teams and leaders to make great decisions and deliver even greater results.

A streamlined tool for project management optimization and insight could not come at a more critical time. The world is changing: workplace models have been overhauled, roles and responsibilities are being redefined, the market is more competitive, and value streams are becoming more complex.

We are on the cusp of an opportunity to aid complex teams in making value-driven business decisions that guarantee desired business outcomes—and we feel poised to deliver.

Hybrid workforce models are on the rise. Companies are challenged more than ever to keep projects, people, and the organization flourishing. The IT industry is emblematic of professional work environments, building solutions, and innovating around and through new world challenges.

A report cited by Teamstage.io shows that about 70% of IT project implementations fail to meet their objectives. Another 2020 report from Cisq revealed that unsuccessful development projects cost US companies about $260 billion, while operational failures due to poor-quality software totaled $1.56 trillion. Failed IT implementation has both a managing consequence and a bottom-line effect. Reynolds, and providers like DevStride, are finding solace and opportunity in the value proposition of on-the-fly solutions for complex work environments.

Hybrid work models appear to be the new normal. Multiple sectors are beginning to recognize that software aimed at agility in a changing landscape of workers and projects plays a significant role in outcomes.

Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.