Cutter Consortium

Consulting

Cutter's more than 150 Senior Consultants have deep experience providing consulting assistance to organizations worldwide. From Agile Enablement assessments to developing an appropriate enterprise architecture plan, from benchmarking your software development processes to determining a strategy for implementing business performance management dashboards for executives, from working with your IT strategic planning committee to conducting due diligence on a potential outsourcing partner, and more, Cutter's subject- and domain-area expertise is unparalleled.

Case studies: Agile Product and Project Management | Enterprise Architecture | Access to the Experts

Agile Product and Project Management Consulting Case Studies

Client Profile: International Leader in Workforce Management Software
The focus of this engagement was to transition an engineering department of 600 people (developers, QA staff, product managers, architects, etc.) to an agile organization. Because their products (over 20) are all released as a suite at the same time, this client chose a group-wide transition strategy rather than an incremental one. Key focal points for the client were to improve product quality and team performance as the complexity of their product line had increased dramatically over the past few years. After an extensive qualitative and quantitative assessment of the organization recommended "agile lite" approach consisting of a blending of Agile Project Management and Industrial Extreme Programming, the transition began with extensive training (An Agile Overview, Agile Project Management, Agile for Product Management, IXP components for technical staff), assistance in chartering some 40 individual project teams, and several months of on-site coaching. Other recommendations implemented by the client addressed issues related to large integrated systems: frequent total integration, cross-team coordination, organizational changes, performance measurement changes, and multi-level release planning. Transition assistance was provided at all levels of the organization, from developers and QA staff to managers, directors, and the VP. The transition to agile and first product release following the transition were considered very successful by the VP of engineering.

Client Profile: International Scientific Instrument Manufacturer
The initial engagement with this client was to transition their software development groups to agile methods. As the software transition showed significant success, Cutter helped implement agile practices in the hardware project teams as well. After several agile projects had been completed by this client, Cutter metrics consultants conducted a before and after analysis that showed overall (pre-agile versus agile projects): defects reduced by 83%, schedule reduced by 24%, costs reduced by 61%, and staffing reduced by 39%). For several software teams Cutter provided training, project chartering facilitation, and extensive on-site coaching for several months. Our experience has been that hands-on coaching is critical to a rapid and effective agile transition. Cutter also provided extensive project chartering facilitation, facilitation training, and agile project coaching for a half-dozen large hardware projects for this client. We assisted in adapting agile practices to their hardware environment and developing a phase-gate governance system that incorporate agile methods.

Client Profile: Global Leader in Publishing Information for Professionals
This client's publication services, both print and web-based, cover medical, legal, education, and business. Cutter's senior team worked with key client mangers to raise the awareness of agile methods within the organization, including an all-day session with world-wide managers in New York City, and a speaking engagement at the clients world wide technical conference. We helped the client plan their agile transition, worked with them on implementing effective collaboration practices, and developing an agile assessment tool. We provided training, chartering, and coaching services to several teams in the US and one in England.

Summary of Cutter Enterprise Architecture Consulting Engagements

Industry: Banking
Client Profile: Large, national bank and financial services organization.
Project Focus: Enterprise Architecture Training

Like many organizations, this bank is faced with a shortage of skilled architects. To make matters worse, many current architects are nearing retirement age. To address these issues, Cutter developed a 6-part, custom training program to cover all aspects of EA, both in the industry and in this particular organization. Each module was 4 or 5 days, and was presented twice (in different locations). Custom labs were developed that integrated bank-specific examples, processes, and artifacts so that architects could take what they learned directly back to their jobs. The following year, the bank re-engaged the Cutter team to create an annual EA training program based on the initial training, which is now in its second year.

Industry: Government
Client Profile: Agency involved in commerce.
Project Focus: Independent design review of outsourced projects.

Cutter performed numerous Independent Architecture and Design Review (IADR) activities for outsourced development projects for a government agency. Some example evaluation criteria included:

  • Strategic Perspective: Does the Architecture/Design support the Business Strategies, including: continuity/contingency, vendor neutrality, enterprise architecture, etc.?
  • Technical Perspective: Does the Architecture/Design conform to architectural requirements, use effective design, have an effective development environment, have appropriate infrastructure impacts, accommodate expected growth and scale, etc.? Is the security design appropriate?
  • Business, Project Management and Other Perspectives: Does the Architecture/Design provide a basis for implementing the business requirements? Does it provide adequate guidance to development teams on technical challenges, resolutions, and patterns? Does it follow industry best practices for modeling, implementation, testing, and documentation?

The results of the evaluations led to numerous improvements in the design and testing of projects and the elimination of redundant development activities.

Industry: Mortgage
Client Profile: National loan servicing agency
Project Focus: Architecture Review and Recommendation.

At a major mortgage provider, Cutter evaluated the existing environment, which was based on a highly customized and modified 25-year old application, combined with a new, but unpopular, workflow-based application. Cutter provided recommendations for immediate improvements to the workflow application and task definitions, an architecture for consolidating and rationalizing the extensions to the application for the mid-term, and an architecture and transition strategy for a target SOA architecture over 3 years. Cutter worked with the IT management to begin the transition to SOA.

Industry: Government
Client Profile: State Department of Transportation
Project Focus: Create Enterprise Architecture.

Cutter has had a long-term consulting relationship with the state Department of Transportation. In 2002-2003, Cutter helped them undertake a program to: (1) simultaneously develop a Strategic IT Plan and (2) develop an initial EA report and establish an EA group. Working with business and IT leaders using JAD sessions and other techniques they developed business and information architectures based on context and workflow diagrams. These were implemented in the EA repository, including other techniques for long-term planning and strategic decision making, including BNC and 'radar' diagrams. The architectural effort was so successful, that the DOT Architect has been promoted to the EA position for the entire state. Subsequent activities have included working with DOT and State enterprise architects to interface the program with SDLC and to spread the program to other Agencies. In 2005, the DOT EA Program received the State and Local Government Award at the Annual Federal Enterprise Architecture Conference in Washington D.C.

Industry: Loans
Client Profile: Student Loan Guarantee Association
Project Focus: Create Enterprise Architecture Vision and Road Map.

The IT infrastructure for a student loan corporation had grown into a hodge-podge of different platforms, systems, and integration. In addition to the high cost of maintenance and unnecessary complexity, the corporation was not able to keep pace with the changes in the industry. Working with the Executive Committee and business and IT leaders, Cutter developed a business-driven Enterprise Architecture, including high-level business, information, application, and technology architectures and developed a roadmap for transitioning the technology, architecture, and organization from the current situation to the target future state. The corporation is currently in the first phases of implementation of the roadmap.

Coaching, Management Mentoring and Facilitation