TV Guide

The Challenge

TV Guide had engaged a global systems integrator to help them design and implement a business critical replacement to their entertainment data repository. The initial release of the software for user testing exposed major misunderstandings by the India based development team of the requirements, and substantial quality problems.

In response, the integrator made process and personnel changes and proposed a significant extension to the project timeline. TV Guide needed an independent assessment of whether these changes had addressed the core problems and if they could depend on the new schedule.

Our Contribution

The Development Leverage team traveled to Bangalore for a one week detailed project review. We interviewed all senior team members, a representative sample of junior team members, and performed detailed reviews of key quality processes. In addition, we performed a detailed review of project management artifacts, monitored daily team processes, and dug into the specific QA scripts and infrastructure.

We were able to independently confirm that a number of positive changes outlined by the integrator had been successfully implemented. However our review also identified a number of unrecognized risks and problems. Discussion of these issues with all sides and resulted in additional improvements to project processes.