A high growth, 10-year-old Fintech company based in Austin, Texas, was struggling to expand beyond the core offerings that fueled its marketplace success. Well intended hard working professionals could not seem to find the formula to transition from a traditional customer premise-based application to a data driven, cloud-based enterprise platform. Several attempts to modernize original platforms and to develop and deliver extensions to its core solutions led to failure. Ultimately, this resulted in broken marketplace promises, wasted product development expenses, and expanding operational expenses as the old systems stressed under the growth. The company’s renown strength of innovation and creativity was also its Achilles heel when it came to fulfilling its inspiring vision.
The President suspected the company needed to retool its approach to product development, emphasizing the importance of interdependent planning and accountability. He called Janet Ply, with whom he’d worked in a previous company. He was aware of and had experienced her ability to organize out-of-control situations, improve management practices, and lead large teams of people to organize around repeatable success. With that level of confidence, Janet and a small team were given the authority and resources to transform bad habits into best practices.
During Janet’s tenure at the company, she sorted through projects and personalities; organized the projects, aligned teams and roles; provided real-time leadership and project management guidance; and over time, built a Program Management Office (PMO) with trained Project Managers that enabled consistent project delivery across the company. Enterprise projects that had stalled for almost two years were moved forward and completed. She also worked with the VP, Product Management to implement a Product Development and Management Methodology to assist in prioritization, functionality, and releases. Furthermore, new roles and habits, established through Janet’s leadership, lived on. The company went on to complete a total technology ‘makeover’ and announce a series of new offerings, fueling their continued growth.
