Small steps by using unFIX
Authors: Kadri Pirn and Andreas Hascher
In Germany, there is a software company called Proxora that offers a modular compliance platform as a SaaS solution. Their journey to discovering unFIX and implementing it into their organizational design has been an interesting one.
Proxora realized that in order to scale their business, they needed to have a more flexible and adaptable organizational structure.
The journey to becoming unFIXed is ongoing for Proxora, but they are excited about the future and the possibilities that this methodology can bring to their business. They have learned that embracing change and being open to new ideas can lead to significant growth and success.
The old times
Regulatory and environmental compliance is a significant and continuously growing concern for many medium and large corporations. While some of them develop their internal processes for compliance on their own, an innovative company is providing a SaaS solution for this challenge.
In 2007 Proxora was starting to focus on compliance due to the urgent need of a customer for an adequate solution. The company successfully delivered the project for that particular customer, which led to other companies reaching out with similar needs. Initially, the company provided on-premise classical business solutions that required setting up a separate team per customer and project.
As Proxora grew, the founders realized that their solution was a general need and started providing it as a SaaS platform. However, due to different requirements from each company, scoping the solution became challenging. Proxora always prioritized customer needs and balanced between specific and general requirements. This led to difficult prioritization challenges and strategic decision-making, especially when requirements were contradictory.
Proxora began their business with a team of five and has experienced steady organic growth over the years. However, during the pandemic, they saw an opportunity to accelerate their growth by taking advantage of the availability of talented individuals. Despite always prioritizing the quality of their team over the quantity, Proxora recognized the value that these new hires could bring to the company.
The previous version of Proxora, it was mostly stable for few years
As Proxora's team grew larger, it became challenging to handle everything as one cohesive unit. To address this, the company established scrum teams, with each new project or business line having its own dedicated team. However, prioritization across different teams remained a painful process.
In 2018, Proxora introduced Flight Levels to the company, which allowed for different points of view across the organization.
Management was designated as Flight Level 3
Project Managers and Product Owners forming Flight Level 2
Scrum Teams defined as Flight Level 1
This new approach helped to alleviate some of the prioritization challenges that the company was facing. More information about Flight Levels.
From 2018 to 2022, Proxora operated with dedicated scrum teams and a stable way of working. However, the company recognized that it was time for a change and fresh thinking. Additionally, the process of onboarding new employees had become time-consuming and challenging, indicating a need for a more adaptable organizational structure.
The first sight of unFIX
Towards the end of 2022, Proxora's leadership team recognized that scaling up the organization would be the top priority in 2023. With around 30 people on the existing team, it was clear that the current way of working together needed to be revised and systematic thinking was required to onboard people effectively and establish more flexible teams. Dynamic reteaming was necessary to achieve this. Andreas Hascher discovered the unFIX model and found it intriguing.
In November 2022, Andreas read the blog posts on unFIX and saw the symptoms of the familiar problems that could be fixed with it. In December, he proposed the unFIX model to the leadership team, and in January, he and Jan Tchinitchian drafted the existing Proxora organization using unFIX patterns. They shared the updates in monthly company meetings.
In February 2023, Andreas and Jan participated in the unFIX workshop, where they got the toolset to paint the picture of the organization in a clean way. Scrum teams and forums were already established before the unFIX patterns, so it was an easy first step. Capability Crews were a new and more interesting establishment from unFIX.
Since the March company update, the entire organization is aware of the unFIX organization map. While discussions around roles and responsibilities are still ongoing, it is expected that more discussions will happen and agreements will be reached with unFIX in the organization. Some value streams may be split as they grow. While it was not a big-bang change in the organization, more clarity and easier discussions can now occur in day-to-day work.
Structure with unFIX
Proxora has restructured their teams into Value Stream Crews, which were previously organized as scrum teams responsible for specific product modules. Each of them has end to end responsibility from customer requirements to supporting the final product module. The Infra/Platform/Master Data Value Stream Crew delivers main capabilities for customers, while other Value Stream Crews are focused on technical capabilities.
The Capability Crew was formed from individuals across the Value Stream Crews to develop and implement Infra/DevOps tooling in each module. People with Infra and DevOps skill sets are spread around different value streams, including the Infra/DevOps value stream, but at the same time they also form the Capability Crew, which owns the tooling.
The Governance Crew includes the previous leadership team, responsible for people management. Value Stream Captains also have some people management responsibilities to ensure crew efficiency, health, and growth, but ultimate responsibility for compensation and hiring remains with the Governance Crew. An Experience Crews was newly formed around marketing and sales.
While some individuals participate in only one crew, many are part of multiple crews. Participation in forums is encouraged, and at least one person from each Value Stream Crew usually takes part in each forum.
Forums were already in place prior to the unFIX change, but now their scope and ownership have been more clearly defined, allowing for discussions on responsibilities, objectives, and focus.
Benefits doing the exercise
The use of unFIX patterns enabled the Proxora team to re-evaluate how they defined their teams and their interdependencies. Discussions were held on how to structure functional teams and divide team members between different scrum teams, such as infra and devops specialists. The patterns also revealed the need for a more visible and strengthened customer experience-focused teams, which were established without hiring new employees.
Regular meetings, such as Architects and Quality Assurance, were renamed as Forums and given more structure as the patterns from unFIX provide them a more clear meaning. Simple things like using smileys helped to engage team members and increase their motivation to help the company on its scaling journey.
The main effort was put on defining roles, as some people with the same title were performing different tasks and it was unclear what responsibilities belonged to certain roles, such as Product Owner. The re-evaluation of the organization using unFIX patterns provided a guidance, language, and space to discover and address gaps between expectations and reality, creating transparency and resulting in clearer role descriptions.
During the exercise and workshop, new ideas and adjustments were also discussed with members of the unFIX Core Team, providing food for thought for the future.
Next steps
Proxora is continuously monitoring and improving its onboarding process to increase efficiency and enhance customer value. The company is committed to making small, constant changes to promote innovation. The reteaming plans are well-defined within the value stream, and discussions are ongoing about the Infra/Devops crew capability or platform crew. Proxora is considering creating more Experience Crews to standardize customer interactions and share valuable experiences across different teams.
The company is also exploring ways to clarify the goals of the Platform Crew, which provides internal services to other Value Stream Crews, by defining it as a separate type of crew. While Value Stream Crews deliver direct value to external customers, the Platform Crew focuses on delivering independent value to the organization's internal customers. Despite mostly providing services to other Value Stream Crews, Infra/Devops crew still provides direct value to customers, so it is now defined as a Value Stream.
However, Forums present a challenge for empowering decision-making and delivering changes in a non-directive way. The company also faces a challenge in unifying the user experience of the different modules in its product, which were developed separately. These challenges could be addressed with the help of unFIX patterns.
To improve the definition of roles and their responsibilities, Proxora is currently working on a project to closely examine the Roles Attributes. This includes defining Participation Levels and Time Commitments for the upcoming weeks. The company hopes that changes will continue to be constant, based on discussions and tensions from the crews.
Conclusions about the first steps with unFIX
If you're facing challenges related to
team transparency,
collaboration, and
work distribution,
unFIX can be a helpful.
You can start by reading blog posts and publications or attending workshops to get detailed answers to your questions. It doesn't have to be a big transformation project; it can be a simple, iterative process that starts with small steps. For instance, unFIX can help address conflicts between internal and external customers, which can make it difficult to prioritize Infra/DevOps objectives. Identifying the right value streams and crews and applying the adequate re-teaming option will help to focus and deliver the product improvements with the most customer faster. With the clear focus of each crew and the option to easily re-team, new employees can be integrated smoothly into the organization and support Proxora’s future growth.
