Govtech · 2010s
Smartmatic
Six months stalled → delivered in three
A ballot-voting technology programme that had been stuck for half a year.
The situation
The programme had been stalled for six months. The visible symptom was delivery: dates moved, scope argued, nothing shipped.
The actual problem sat between requirements, product and the people responsible for each.
The actual problem
Delivery was late.
Nobody agreed what was being built.
What I changed
Messy
Untangle
Make it understandable
Before
25 moving parts
- Complex.
- Expensive.
- Hard to change.
After
5 moving parts
- Simple.
- Flexible.
- Easy to scale.
- Diagnosed before prescribing
- Reconnected requirements to product decisions
- Gave delivery something it could actually build against
- Restored a single owner for scope
Artefact — process diagram
Artefact pending publication.
Result
3 months
from stalled to delivered
On budget
and on time
Nothing was added. Something was untangled.
What this taught me
“A stalled project is rarely a delivery problem. It's usually an agreement problem.”
More thinking →Principles at work here
Root cause before solution
Diagnose before you prescribe.