Faster, better and more predictable: IT is helping Hyrde grow.

Rockstar Richard van Zandwijk joined Hyrde’s team to initiate the necessary steps in IT. Among other things, he introduced Infrastructure as Code and enabled the move from virtual machines to a stateless architecture. He also further developed Hyrde’s scrum working method. He worked on a clear division of roles and took on the role of scrum master himself. “Hyrde is working more and more proactively, rather than just reactively to customer requirements,” he says. “That had to be reflected in the scrum process. You don’t want to fill the sprints with ever new things that were thought up by a customer the week before, but to develop a roadmap and look ahead. As gatekeepers, it’s the scrum master and product owners who always ask the question: Is this important for the platform as a whole, or are we back to customizing for that one customer after all? In this way, the scrum process contributes significantly to the desired change.”

Moreover, predictability has increased tremendously. Alexander: “Because of the uniformity that has now been created, we can assess more conceptually. That saves time and increases predictability. Better estimates are made on the front end and on the back end we are better able to perform the work within the estimated time and budget.”

Thanks in part to the open mindset of the Hyrde employees, their flexibility and willingness to develop, the first results quickly showed themselves. “We have already saved about 20 percent of our monthly IT infrastructure costs in the first few months,” Alexander said. “Moreover, thanks to the new CI/CD pipelines that Richard set up, we can deploy faster and with fewer errors. This has contributed enormously to the operational improvement. The availability of features and functionalities has improved and the number of bugs has been reduced. We are less dependent on the knowledge of specific IT people and – thanks to standardized frameworks and templates – can configure much faster. Within the team, communication has improved tremendously. People understand each other better. We can therefore switch faster and there is more togetherness.”

Richard: “There is much less ad hoc work, much more planning and looking further ahead. And that’s a change you see throughout the company, including in sales, for example. Everyone is coming together more and more.” Code quality has also improved. “Hyrde has a very diverse and international development team. By making good agreements with each other and working with code reviews, the quality has gone up. We see this, among other things, in the number of issues we encounter in production.

“Team Rockstars pays a lot of attention to talent management,” Alexander said. “I notice that on the shop floor. Because of the guidance in the area of personal development, knowledge and competencies, Richard not only grows himself, but he is also able to make our team grow along with him. IT professionals who do not have such an organization behind them have less of that. That really is an added value. What is also very nice is that Team Rockstars offers webinars that help me understand IT better and thus talk more easily with my development team. They are very good at creating understanding at the management and executive level about what IT people do and what is needed in the future. Especially in more conservative markets like construction, that helps AND is needed.”