Wärtsilä was able to balance work with the support of SAFe®

In brief

Customer

Wärtsilä

Challenge The aim was to find a solution for the engine product development area in Vaasa, Finland, where one organisation could support a large quantity of customers and stay on schedule.

Results A new operating model that increased transparency, predictability, and communication. The implemented changes have been applied in some other parts of Wärtsilä and may continue to be applied in other areas.

Benefits Understanding of the organisation’s delivery capacity grew. Due to a more precise focus, the work is completed on time, without overloading employees. The organisation also gained better visibility to future deliverables.

The cooperation between Nitor and Wärtsilä is a good example of how an agile approach can produce value regardless of the sector. Agility is traditionally perceived as an approach in software development, but this way of thinking and operating has a lot to offer, even when the product at hand is a physical hardware product. The SAFe® model creates transparency, better communication, and means to break down work tasks. What matters is not what we do, but how we do it.

Help an organisation thrive with agile practices

Wärtsilä set out to find a solution to the typical challenges of traditional business. One unit in the development organisation was under pressure when several different stakeholders had conflicting and overlapping demands. In the previous operating model, the lack of transparency and the limited knowledge of the actual delivery capacity of the organisation led to variation in deliveries timing, as the unit received assignments without full transparency of what was possible within the desired schedule. Previous attempts to improve the unit’s delivery capability had not resulted in the desired outcome. Wärtsilä wanted to find a solution that would give transparency and predictability to the work progress, and thus meet the schedules without overloading employees.

We began the cooperation by visualising the ongoing work. Problem areas and bottlenecks were identified, and we started prioritising work from the perspective of value production. We detected that the organisation’s inflow significantly exceeded the outflow, so we started removing the parts of the workflow that did not serve the desired outcome.

From the beginning, Wärtsilä understood that sustainable change requires commitment. The organisation’s management had a strong desire to support the success of the teams so that the change would have the desired impact. This practically resulted in extensive training throughout the organisation. This was followed by a series of workshops to put the new approach into practice, for example through joint planning. We started visualising the ongoing work together. At the same time, the dependencies causing delays were made visible, and several categories of work were identified. The JIRA tool was also configured to enable feedback through the backlog.

We continued training and coaching the employees in the different roles throughout the process so that necessary support for change was available at all times. Wärtsilä wanted to ensure the success of the change and therefore put significant efforts into the change from the beginning. This way, the SAFe® Release Train really got off to the desired start: right from the first Program Increment, the desired outcome was achieved. At the same time, we continuously improved the architecture so that the work would flow through the organisation with ease and as effortlessly as possible.

Photos: Wärtsilä

Axe tasks to balance work and increase productivity

New operating models have become a part of Wärtsilä’s daily life. The ability to face things as they are at the given moment brought a real understanding of the current state. This, in turn, gave us hope that we can find a solution to our challenges. In the process of change, the organisation’s common priorities have become clearer, which has enabled us to axe tasks that are less important from the perspective of customer value.

The ability to negotiate the content of the work and agree on the work progress in advance are now used in the organisation’s daily life, which has helped remove bottlenecks. This has increased focus on the work which creates most value, and the employees’ pride and appreciation for their own work. In the new model, everyone’s input is also more clearly visible and hence everyone gets the credits they deserve.

Safe® train has safely taken off thanks to a significant initial commitment

At Wärtsilä, it was clear that sufficient commitment was needed from the outset to implement a successful change. The efforts were evident in many ways: all actors were quickly involved as the change process began, throughout the change effort was put into education and training, and discussions were held whenever needed. The first SAFe® trains were released by a few teams. Because they produced good results, the agile practices soon spread throughout the organisation.

After visualising the work and cutting down on unnecessary tasks, the organisation built a new roadmap based on how much work it is possible to complete. Team structures were also changed to support the new operating model. Once the organisation’s inflow and outflow of projects had been balanced, it was possible to start increasing the amount of work without sacrificing performance. With the change, communication both within the organisation and across organisational boundaries has worked very well, enabling the challenges ahead to be solved together and bottlenecks avoided.

Wärtsilä engine product development team’s change process has been a successful project. The success is due to Wärtsilä’s genuine desire to succeed, their honest and genuine communication throughout the cooperation, and the management’s true commitment to change, among other things. These have resulted in a strong mutual trust between Wärtsilä and Nitor, allowing for a flow of continuous feedback on everything that is done. The success of the cooperation is, above all, due to the positive attitude of teamwork, which has also enabled us to solve even the most demanding challenges together.