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For WX105, we looked at innovative ways to tackle talent shortages and, specifically, at upskilling initiatives here at Citrix.

The Need

Engineers are a scarce resource, and it’s critical that they invest their time in work that benefits the business. First, we realized we had to align to our cloud-first mantra, and that our own engineering organization needed evolve to get there. We changed the way we worked completely, including how we design, architect, develop, deliver, and operate our software in the cloud. Instead of designing products, we focused on building solutions.

The Plan

This shift required an unparalleled level of communication and an emphasis on soft skills. Not only did we build cross-functional agile teams, we scaled up a level and built a solution-focused cross-functional team of teams. Instead of product cycles, we used lean innovation and built low fidelity mock-ups and prototypes. This innovation allowed us to get fast feedback from our customers so we could learn and continuously evolve our design and architecture with minimal waste. By optimizing our engineering talent and aligning with cloud delivery, we found a unique way to innovate around our constrained resource — developers.

The Upskilling

We upskilled our teams to become operationally lean. We decentralized decision making, employed set-based design principles, leveraged a lean startup cycle, and gave our teams the structure to deliver on commitments and the space to innovate. We created a culture of lifelong learning by running trainings that enabled us to speak a common language, operate on a unified rhythm, and relentlessly improve.

The Result

In short, by finding new ways to innovate in how we work, we were able to transform into a lean-agile organization that is aligned around the solutions that our customers demand as opposed a loosely coupled string of point products. This tighter integration, along with a focus on customer value, enabled us to mitigate talent shortages for both the short-term and long-term future.

Explore more about upskilling and reskilling in the new Quartz WX105 course, and be on the lookout for more posts about workplace experience.