Sammendrag
Establishing proper and seamless communication and coordination between the teams is critical for the success of any organization, with software firms being no exception. In Signicat, like every other IT organization, the technology team follows an agile approach to developing software. However, the sales team requires fixed launch dates and predictable product roadmaps to effectively complete a deal with the customer. The technology teams have adopted and benefitted hugely by operating on agile frameworks like Scrum, Kanban and Scrumban that help them meet the changes in customer needs, market requirements and technology. To improve their coordination and communication with sales teams, both teams should be able to
speak a common language called ‘agile’.
With empirical data collected through interviews, relevant literature and my personal experience working in agile teams, in this master thesis, I am focusing on how agile in sales, project manager's competence and design thinking can improve the communication and coordination between the technology and sales teams. With this, I have analysed the factors that ensured success and failure in communication and coordination for the projects PSD2 and German eID, respectively. In addition to this, I have also analysed the strategic and tactical focus of various players in the sales team.
Based on the insights gathered through literature reviews and in-depth interviews with the people in Signicat, implementing agile in sales teams can help them understand the technology team's lingo and work process. And this understanding can be a driver to ensuring better communication between both teams. Moreover, it was found that a project manager's role and competence are crucial in fostering better communication and coordination between the teams in an organization. In addition to this, it was discovered that design thinking could drive the technology, sales team and the organization as a whole towards customer-centricity.
Keywords: Agile Methodologies, Software Development Team, Sales Team, Project Management, Product Teams, Coordination and Communication, Customer-Centricity, Design Thinking