Pearson Case Analysis
Question:
1. What challenges does Greg Adams-Woodford face as he develops his five-year product
roadmap?
2. How do product and software development methodologies influence a firm’s ability to
respond to market demands?
3. What benefits did Pearson realize in making the shift from a waterfall process to an
Agile one? What downsides might be associated with this shift? What firm or market
circumstances are more likely to benefit from a Waterfall or Agile methodology?
4. What are some of the things Greg should consider as he evaluates whether to continue to
focus on the SuccessMaker product versus becoming involved in a company-wide Agile
initiative? Which approach should Greg pursue? How might he optimize the approach?
5. Within the SuccessMaker team, should Greg agree to follow the recommendations from
his developers to move from Scrum to Kanban? Should he also push to move all the
remaining teams (the content/curriculum team) to Scrum or Kanban? What metrics should
he use to evaluate his decisions?
1. What challenges does Greg Adams-Woodford face as he develops his five-year
product roadmap?
•Need for changing of software development process: The waterfall process relies
on heavy documentation. Software is developed off-shore, resulting in
miscommunication between development teams. By using this process, it is
difficult to adjust specifications or features of softwares after the design process is
finished. Moreover, the waterfall process is costly, and requires a lot of time to
develop a software.
•After introduction of Agile methodology to the development of SuccessMaker
Woodford faced a problem that the rest of the teams and functions within Pearson
are still using old methodologies, which occasionally resulted in clashes between
the old system teams and new system teams. This problem hindered the perceived
benefits of introducing the Agile methodology. Thus for the next 5 years he needs
to bring the organizational culture and structure under common denominator be it
the Agile methodology or any other, otherwise the overall benefit of the new
systems will be lost.
•Implementation of new system: To implement Agile software methodologies, Greg
has to put more effort than just to change a system. This implementation requires
him to change organizational structures and cultures. Offshore software
development has to be ceased and promote more face-to-face communication
among teams. Greg also probably receives negative feedbacks from this change.
Some staff may be confused, thus unhappy with his/her new roles and resist to
change.
•Changing of external factors: Given the global economic crisis, slow economic
