In this consulting engagement, I addressed the pressing need to improve the defect tracking process for an e-commerce company based in San Francisco. The Defect Governance Organization (DGO), responsible for tracking defects on e-commerce projects, was experiencing challenges with its existing process that involved significant manual work and inefficiencies.
The tracking process required 10 employees to enter defects into the company's internal tool, AMSA, and then relay the same information to a manager through various communication channels. The manager was responsible for manually compiling these defects into a calendar-view Excel document to provide status updates on ongoing, completed, and pending tasks.
This manual process was inefficient, prone to errors, and led to outdated information in the calendar. Additionally, the redundancy of employees having to report defects in two different platforms, and the sole responsibility of a single manager updating the document, was recognized as non-optimal.
Given the manager's total annual compensation, there was an opportunity to increase efficiency and reduce costs by overhauling the defect tracking process.
The DGO head expressed the need for a solution that was low-cost, low-maintenance, easy to update (preferably real-time or at least twice-daily information refresh), user-friendly, provided a calendar view, and offered readily accessible defect tracking capabilities.
In response to these requirements, I embarked on a consulting project aimed at streamlining the defect tracking process. This involved an in-depth analysis of the current system, identifying inefficiencies, and recommending changes based on best practices in defect tracking and project management.
The project outcome was an improved system that not only streamlined the defect reporting and tracking process, but also contributed to cost savings and improved project outcomes. Specific solutions will depend on the project constraints and the technology capabilities of the organization.
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