A Lean and Agile Digital Transformation

The Challenge

Our client, a $6.4B American specialty retailer, had moved into omni-channel marketing just four years previously, striving to engage customers through different touchpoints to develop more engagement with their brand across platforms. They succeeded - in fact, they quickly surpassed their $2B digital ambitions and found that the omni-channel demands outpaced their ability to respond.

For this company, digital initiatives were rigidly planned and funded a year in advance. Even small marketing campaigns had to wait for more than a year to get approval, which was simply not competitive. Command and control management structures, a heavyweight waterfall delivery model, and a cobbled-together tech platform buckled under the stress.

Executives saw the impacts on customers and employees, but lacked leaders with the experience needed to modernize their operating model. The Project Management Office (PMO) and product teams were also worlds apart. So the client brought in Launch - to understand their vision and develop a tailored program to move toward a product-centric Agile model.

The Solution

Launch’s transformation team began with an organizational assessment to uncover pain points, bottlenecks, and cultural roadblocks. Key insights included the need for:

• A bimodal delivery model—balancing agility and operational stability
• A redefined role for the PMO as a partner in cross-functional delivery
• A transition to Lean portfolio management to break the rigid annual planning cycle

Working closely with leadership, Launch facilitated future-state design workshops, mapped the system of delivery, and launched pilot product teams to validate the new approach.