The case: The client is a company in the mechanical engineering sector that decided to develop an IT system to manage the administrative activities of its maintenance technicians (over 1,000 technicians distributed across Italy).

The project was assigned to an ICT consulting firm that proposed an application based on a workflow‑management system.

The first phase of the project, which had followed a traditional plan‑driven (waterfall) lifecycle, had revealed several critical issues, and the relationship with the IT vendor had become strained. However, the system still needed to be completed, and the client had decided to implement a series of improvements to make it usable. There were many doubts - both on the client side and on the vendor side (the ICT consulting firm).

PMProgetti's intervention: After discussions with both the client and the ICT provider, we proposed changing the project approach and adopting a change‑driven (agile) lifecycle based on the Scrum framework. Neither the client nor the ICT provider had prior experience with Scrum. A certified PMProgetti consultant took on the role of Scrum Master.

The Scrum Master began by organizing a workshop to introduce Agile concepts, set up the project parameters (defining roles, Sprints, the Definition of Done, the Roadmap, the Product Backlog, etc.), and - most importantly - rebuild the project team by involving both the client and the ICT provider. At the beginning, doubts were many, and skepticism on both sides was strong and evident.

However, after the first two Sprints, the joint project team (client and provider) had overcome the main issues that had emerged in the previous phase: roles were clear, the agile management of change requests made the project more flexible, the quality of both the project and the product improved, the team was following the roadmap precisely and keeping its commitments, and requirements analysis had significantly improved.

The second phase of the project was completed on time and within budget, even while managing several unforeseen changes along the way. In the final retrospective, both the client and the provider (especially the provider’s team) were visibly satisfied with the results, and the client decided to continue working with the provider. One sentence from the client particularly struck us: “This project was simple, but we would never have achieved this result without this Scrum Master.”