Santillana improves its deliveries by defining a Lean-Agile Management System

Santillana managed to increase its value deliveries by 60% by connecting the lean philosophy with agile methodologies in the creation of its new portal, which is part of its digital transformation. To do this, they needed to ensure greater visibility of the team, from the beginning to the end of the process, and to promote decision-making based on data and facts. Today, they are able to show a high degree of leveling in the management of incoming work and work in progress, an increase in delivery volume, even with a team that is still incomplete, and a lower degree of variation, contributing to better predictability.

In the increasingly agile world we live in, the adoption of the methodology that bears this same name is ever more ubiquitous. However, it is important that we see the difference between being truly agile and practicing a hurried agility, the kind that leads nowhere. The difference lies in lean thinking. Those who take care not to lose sight of the foundations of the lean mindset achieve superior results and ensure agility in their processes. Those who fail to do so display their beautiful tools like trophies, but fail to increase the value delivered to the one who really matters, the customer.

The agile world without lean

Before embarking on its lean journey, Santillana already used agile methodology in its processes, but had few positive results to show. Much of this was due to the fact that, at the time, they did not have many indicators to know how they were actually doing, without numbers and data to express progress and difficulties and to guide planning work for the future. This was one of the main reasons that led them to seek out lean. Agile methodology has enormous potential to improve processes, but without knowing where it is working and where it needs to be adjusted, the chances of success are significantly reduced.

They wanted to work in a truly agile way, improving their processes and, always as a focus, keeping their customers satisfied. The work they were doing with agile was far from bad, but it needed clearer direction. Lean helps you see, to look holistically at the work. This integration thus makes it possible for work to be improved day to day, with superior delivery quality, which, thanks to the indicators clearly displayed for everyone, becomes visible to the entire company.

The agile world with lean

The beginning of Santillana's work with lean focused on some important problems that were emerging and that the publisher sought to tackle. Among them, the lack of alignment between the prioritization of demands and the company's strategy was the most visible. Lean provided them with a delivery of value connected to their strategy, something that truly bore good fruit for the process.

Another important change they noticed concerns the value stream. In pursuing a leaner culture, they were able to increase their focus on the customer by working with a pull flow, instead of pushing, as they did before. Lack of team integration, non-standardized user stories, absence of consistent metrics and work overload are a few more examples of problems that the publisher tackled in its lean effort.

Among the many actions taken by Santillana, the one that stood out the most was the creation of a new digital portal to support its commercial strategies. Previously, its demands came from various places, and there was no intake flow for these demands. The creation of this new platform sought to organize a flow so that work would become more consistent, and some challenges became pillars in its construction, such as decision-making based on data and facts, transparency in communication and in the conduct of projects, agility in project management and delivery, improved quality of deliveries, and the materialization of results in indicators.

A portal for a leaner world on the road to Digital Transformation

The creation of the new Santillana portal enabled the company to present its brand with the strength of a holding company. It was one of the main drivers of change in the company and a watershed. It was possible to develop a product with  an innovative design aligned with current  web and mobile usability requirements, using robust and scalable technology. Various content management tools, access indicator analytics and a digital commercial flow integrated with the CRM were incorporated.

A project the size of this portal's development tends to be very prone to rework. Thanks to the use of lean, they were able to predict what would go wrong and anticipate future steps. Before lean, they had no flow management (load x capacity, work in progress, delivery speed, leveling…) to allow this to happen. In addition, lean enabled strategy alignment and team integration and provided follow-up methods and a communication cadence.

The development of a portal, something that requires high levels of technological development and integration with the different areas of a company, is holistic work that cannot succeed unless everyone is involved. Initially, it is common for large projects like this to rely on outside help, as was the case with Santillana. They developed partnerships with companies involved with LIB to develop this portal, drawing on the broad experience of these other companies in the field. That is the beauty of having an active lean community engaged in helping one another.

However, they knew they needed to go through this product discovery phase and move on to a phase of autonomy, in which internal staff would be able to maintain the portal, analyze how the work was being done, and propose and implement improvements. After all, this is the lean spirit of continuous improvement and respect for people. Believe in your people and give them the challenge of continuously improving processes, providing them with the tools and autonomy needed to act. That is why Santillana developed an internal training program with the help of Lean Institute Brasil, ensuring the continuity of its journey on its own two feet.

Train your people

With the aim of extending the knowledge acquired in developing the Santillana portal, in February 2021 they began, in partnership with Lean Institute Brasil, a series of mentoring sessions to train the internal technology and digital product teams. During the mentoring, they developed rich learning material that left them a solid legacy for training new people and areas of the company.

Among the modules developed, they covered flow management with kanban (many people think kanban only applies to the shop floor, but in fact it is useful in all environments), workflow, roles and responsibilities, team policies applied to the workflow, WIP, demand flow and user story. The legacy left by this training allows the company to keep developing its employees internally and spreading the lean philosophy throughout the company.

In addition, the events they hold at set frequencies also strengthen learning and team integration. Besides the dailies (daily meetings of up to fifteen minutes to talk about the previous day and anticipate the day ahead, which already existed in the company before lean), they hold the Operations Review meeting (a strategic prioritization meeting focused on the value stream), a refining meeting (which serves to align deliveries with the technical team) and a retrospective (which serves to bring out lessons learned and expose problems).

The operations review  and retrospective meetings, in particular, brought visible benefits. They helped integrate the team to such a degree that the separation between the Product and Technology areas is now almost imperceptible. Today they are truly members of the same team; product and technology work oriented toward delivering value to the customer. In addition, these meetings strengthened interpersonal relationships and helped in the continuous monitoring of the process, which made it possible to anticipate problems, better manage risks and, as a consequence, improve the management system.

What now?

One of the premises of lean is to always ask “why?”. Why is the process done this way and not another? Why do we believe in this and not in that? When this critical reflection is brought to everyone in the organization, continuous improvement becomes a natural process within the company. That is why the spirit of lean teaches us that we should always seek improvements. If your process is good, congratulations, but the question that remains is “why isn't it even better?”.

Santillana continues on its lean transformation journey, which is only just beginning, aiming to further reduce its lead time, avoid becoming hostage to the process, evolve its delivery cadence, connect the contribution of deliveries to the company's results, and expand to other areas, such as marketing, sales, pedagogy, etc. This last goal is perhaps the most important.

With the brief journey they have had so far, they have achieved complete integration of the product team with the IT team, which opened up nine more positions on the team, while reducing design and development costs. Now, with new projects in mind and the potential to take on two more suppliers, they are seeking to align everyone with a single standard, tools and metrics. What remains as a legacy is the harmony they have managed to develop in their team, who are closer than ever at all levels, and true agility with purpose and commitment to the whole: the combination of agile and lean.

The lean journey has come to contribute even more to Santillana's purpose, which believes in the capacity of education to transform lives, awakening each person's talent.

Now the group is better prepared to continue its digital transformation, which will certainly bring many other digital products like the Santillana Portal.