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Case Study · 02

Portfolio & Delivery Transformation, Global BPO

Stood up intake, prioritization, OpEx/CapEx visibility, tool consolidation, and an Agile playbook across Product, Engineering, Infrastructure, and PMO.

2024 to 202618 monthsTransformation Advisory
Client
Publicly Traded Global BPO
$2.2B revenue · 50K+ employees
Portfolio
CTO & VP, Transformation PMO
18-year company veteran sponsor
Industry
Global BPO, Enterprise
Presenting Problem
No delivery framework, no spend visibility, no intake
Headline Result
$172K
Annual Licensing Cut
The Situation

A publicly traded global customer experience and BPO company with over 50,000 employees across dozens of markets. Sponsored by the CTO and VP of Transformation PMO. An 18-year veteran with direct accountability for technology and delivery outcomes.

The problem wasn't a single broken thing. Work arrived with no intake process, no prioritization framework, and no standard delivery model. Engineering time was untracked. Tools were fragmented. The portfolio had 60+ competing ideas with no mechanism to sequence or eliminate them. Each layer fixed revealed the next. The engagement ultimately spanned six parallel workstreams.

Challenge
01

No Intake Process

Work arrived via email, chat, and executive side requests. No standard mechanism to capture, score, or prioritize before resources were committed.

02

Spend Was Invisible

Engineering time not tracked against OpEx or CapEx. Leadership had no visibility into what initiatives were consuming resources or whether spend generated returns.

03

Fragmented Toolchain

Asana and Jira operated in silos with no integration. Planisware running at $172K/year with low adoption. Portfolio visibility was zero.

04

60+ Ideas, No Filter

An accumulated backlog of competing initiatives with no forcing function to eliminate, score, or sequence them. Every idea consumed attention whether it deserved to or not.

05

No Delivery Model

No standard methodology. Different teams ran different processes with different vocabularies and no shared model for how work moved from idea to execution.

06

Teams Built for Handoffs

Engineering structured around functions rather than flow. Creating coordination overhead, unclear ownership, and the friction Agile is designed to eliminate.

Actions
Asana · WSJF scoring

Lean Intake System

Lean Intake Canvas with WSJF scoring. Standardizing how initiatives entered the portfolio, scored against business value, time criticality, and risk. Applied to the 60+ backlog, culling it to ~20 prioritized initiatives.

Tempo · Jira

OpEx / CapEx Reporting

Tempo integrated into Jira. Enabling engineering and delivery time to be tracked against OpEx and CapEx for the first time. Surfaced spend that had been flowing without accountability.

Asana · Jira · Planisware exit

Tool Consolidation

Asana stood up as intake and PM layer. Asana and Jira integration built for bi-directional portfolio visibility. Planisware decommissioned. $172K annual licensing eliminated.

Confluence · full org

Agile Playbook

Full delivery playbook authored across Product, Engineering, Infrastructure, and PMO. Scrum, Kanban, LPM, ceremonies, role definitions, story standards, backlog management.

Org design · reporting lines

Engineering Restructure

Reporting lines redesigned to limit handoffs and stabilize teams. Reorienting from functional silos to product-aligned ownership. No headcount changes. Clearer decision rights.

Claude · governance

Enterprise AI Rollout

Authored AI usage standards and rollout plan. Surface area for productivity tools mapped against risk posture and contractual obligations to client banks and enterprises.

Results

$172K annual licensing cut

Planisware decommissioned

Replaced by Asana and Jira integration with full portfolio visibility. Eliminated a tool with low adoption and no return.

$172K / year

60+ ideas → ~20 prioritized

WSJF scoring applied

An unmanaged backlog converted into a sequenced portfolio with explicit scoring rationale.

67% reduction

OpEx / CapEx visibility, first time

Tempo · Jira integration

Engineering time classified at the work-item level. Initiative-level ROI tracking became possible.

Spend instrumented

4 functions on one delivery system

Product · Eng · Infra · PMO

Shared intake, shared cadence, shared portfolio view across four functions that had operated in parallel.

1 portfolio view

Agile playbook deployed org-wide

Confluence · standing reference

Lives as the onboarding and governance reference. Not a slide deck, an operating manual.

Standing playbook

No-cost engineering restructure

Reporting lines redesigned

Reduced coordination overhead and clarified decision rights without changing headcount or cost base.

0 headcount change
Run in parallel, single program
6 workstreams
18 months · Transformation Advisory · Global BPO, Enterprise