Sopra Steria: Expanding Hybrid Project Management with Sciforma Plan

Sopra Steria at a Glance

As a consulting, digital services, and solutions publishing group, Sopra Steria supports Europe’s largest companies in their digital transformation. With a presence in 25 countries, it is one of the top five European players in the sector.

• Sector: Digital Services
• Headquarters: Annecy
• Revenue: €5.1 billion € in 2022
• Employees: 46,000
• Website: www.soprasteria.fr

Background: Why Sopra Steria Chose Hybrid PPM

Sopra Steria has been using Sciforma since 2016, mainly in France (which, with some 19,502 employees, represents nearly half of the group), Benelux, and Spain. A growing interest in the tool’s Agile management capabilities led the company to test the application of the solution on agile and hybrid projects (Agile & Waterfall) before deciding to adopt and deploy it across all its international activities.

Sopra Steria’s Expectations and Objectives

Manage hybrid projects simply and efficiently

The Sopra Steria group increased the volume of its Agile projects and wanted to offer project managers an integrated planning solution, allowing them to manage hybrid projects.

Streamline tooling across the group

The service company also wanted to deploy a common operational management tool (capacity planning and project planning) for all 1,000 projects and 20,000 users in its international scope. The PMO saw the opportunity to limit the use of Excel for project management.

Sopra Steria put its expectations to the test by testing Sciforma on an internal pilot project, which demonstrated the advantages of the solution for managing hybrid projects. Then, the company decided to deploy the tool across all its activities.

Benefits for Sopra Steria

The power of Sciforma’s Agile module

Sopra Steria has found in Sciforma the skills required to finely manage Agile projects. The schedule of iterations, to which the backlog items are attached, makes it possible to obtain an overview of the work and to manage each iteration. Each employee can very easily enter their completed and remaining work on each of the backlog items, which can be consulted in real time. Kanban, where employees are able to self-assign tasks, serves as a basis for “daily meetings” and iteration assessments, which increases the team’s autonomy and planning accuracy, especially during periods of remote working. User stories, Epics, Releases and Backlog Items: all the elements of Agile project management are found in the new version of the tool, which has proven to perfectly meet Sopra Steria’s needs.

A solution tailored for hybrid project management

The synchronization across Agile and Waterfall projects greatly facilitated the success of Sopra Steria’s projects. A single timesheet allows team members to easily consolidate Agile and Waterfall tasks, and the synchronization of iterations and Gantt provides the project manager an up-to-date global view of the actual vs forecasted workload and capacity, allowing informed project planning and management. While it is possible to go into the details of each item, iteration, and employee task, the Gantt view also offers a more macro view of planning and overall progress, combining both Agile and Waterfall tasks.

Unrivaled fit, visible performance

Due to the robustness of the tool, Sciforma Plan received support from project managers wishing to upgrade from Excel-type tools. The cloud environment streamlines and facilitates operations for increased efficiency. 98% of Sopra Steria’s project management needs are covered by Sciforma’s standard configuration, thus simplifying maintenance.

The reliability and accuracy of Sciforma’s data reporting has saved Sopra Steria time on low-value-added tasks. In particular, the real-time overview of work progress (particularly through the Agile module) made it possible to cut down on meetings, saving everyone precious time.

Sopra Steria has found in Sciforma the skills required to finely manage Agile projects. The synchronization across Agile and Waterfall projects has greatly facilitated the success of Sopra Steria’s projects.

Jean-Denis Darrigol, Project Director – Group Industrial Department

A Gradual Implementation

After incorporating feedback from pilot participants to determine their ideal solution configuration, Sopra Steria partnered with Sciforma’s implementation team to find the ideal balance between standardization and configurability that would allow them to still benefit from monthly product updates. After confirming Sciforma cloud met the organization’s strong security constraints, and integrating with IT and HR management tools, Sciforma Plan was deployed across the company.

The company’s project portfolio managers then led change management and user training, including video tutorials and webinars, particularly for those using previous versions of Sciforma.