How Softonic adopted Agile, the hard way
How Softonic, a Top 40 internet site and number 2 in Europe in audience, made the transformation to Agile with around 150 people using agile methods. We discuss the changes, how they affected the people, the obstacles to becoming a truly agile company outside of the development area, what still has to be done and important lessons learnt.
Context
We worked in Softonic during the important transition from focusing on projects to products. In the Development and Product areas we began working with agile methodologies in 2011. The technological stack and tools were quite advanced for the time, coping with a large daily traffic. The challenge was to scale the area, focus more on high-performing products and improving the speed of delivery while maintaining high quality. While the rest of the company was working in a traditional way, would they adopt agile ways of working?
Process
- Create clear priorities and communicate them for the company.
- Help organise and manage development teams focusing around products.
- Maintain high quality products with zero-bug focus.
- Apply agile methodologies in the Human Resources team that carried out recruitment and selection at a global level.
- Assist other teams that wished to use agile ways of working in an organic way to expand throughout the company.
- Create an agile training bootcamp for all employees, with the purpose of showing how agile practices work in the daily operations of Softonic and how they could be used in their area. We trained over 250 people in these sessions.
Results
- Reduce time to market for new initiatives and updates, releasing several times a day on an on-demand basis
- Improve teamwork and increase business value delivery
- Reduce uncertainty in project development
- Increase customer and employee satisfaction (coworkers)
