Shaw Industries Completes 9-Month Project in Two Months With New Speed and Agility Sprint Method
Shaw Industries Completes 9-Month Project in Two Months With New Speed and Agility Sprint Method
Industry: Carpet & Flooring Manufacturer
Location: Global
Tactic: Speed & Agility Sprint
Results
Learned and tested a transformative new S&A Sprint Method to scale company-wide
Took a project from charter to pilot in just 49 business days
Gained critical buy-in to select Pulse Survey Tool for employee engagement research
About Shaw Industries:
Shaw Industries Group, Inc., a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., is one of the world’s largest carpet manufacturers. Shaw supplies carpet, resilient, hardwood, tile and stone flooring products, and synthetic turf to residential and commercial markets. Headquartered in Dalton, Georgia, Shaw Industries has a global presence, employing over 22,000 employees all over the world.
The Challenge
The Accelerating Change Team (ACT) at Shaw Industries is a cross-functional leadership cohort that was established to identify opportunities for accelerating change within the organization. Despite their best efforts, the team was encountering three primary behavior challenges throughout the organization that were hindering change, as identified in a company-wide survey: empowerment & accountability, prioritization, and trust & collaboration.
In addition, the Talent and HR team needed support to mobilize and pilot a Pulse Survey to better support employee engagement within the organization. This priority was facing resistance and they were struggling to gain buy-in.
In order to learn better acceleration methods in the organization and support the Pulse Survey pilot, Shaw turned to Bridge Innovate for help.
The Solution
Bridge Innovate proposed Shaw use a Speed and Agility (S&A) Sprint to accelerate change in their organization. With an S&A Sprint methodology, small cross-functional teams are chartered to mobilize a solution to a challenge, accelerating broader impact for the business. These S&A teams step away for a time from their traditional jobs and are pre-funded to test, iterate, and implement various solutions.
An S&A sprint is broken into four main phases: Charter, Onboard, PIT (pilot, iterate, and test), and Connect. Shaw decided to use this structure to charter their Pulse Survey.
First, during the Charter stage, Bridge and Shaw established the team that would run the project. Through evaluating performance, necessary skills and competencies, and establishing the goals of the project, the ACT established a Speed and Agility (S&A) team of six diverse individuals from across the organization.. This cross-functional team structure would help gain executive buy-in, introduce diverse opinions and solutions, and support an outcome that had organizational alignment.
Next, in the Onboarding stage, the team met for a 2-hour virtual session to discuss the problem. Through data gathering, A Decision and Prioritization Matrix, and a 5 Whys outline, the team determined the challenge they needed to solve together. Then, they began the sprints.
Bridge Innovate coached the team through S&A sprints by introducing S&A tools, establishing a pre-structured project timeline, providing a virtual collaboration board, and facilitating creative problem-solving for deliverable accountability. Essentially, Bridge Innovate helped Shaw in the full management of the project. In two-week sprints, each team member would be responsible for a set of initiatives and activities and would then track the progress during the bi-weekly team meetings. This sprint cycle allowed for efficient progress through the project.
Next, the PIT stage began. The team came up with two prototypes and ran small experiments to learn and iterate on the user experience. Finally, in the Connect stage, the S&A team would get to pitch their plan, delivering a report to the ACT team and plan for a broader company implementation plan. The Connect stage would include an official pilot within the business.
The Results
Traditionally, without any S&A tools, Shaw noted that a project of this size would have taken them 147 business days to get it from charter to pilot. However, with the S&A method, they were able to complete the project in just 49 business days. Through the PIT stage, the team demoed and identified a vendor to partner with for their Pulse Survey and created a pilot survey to run in their Savannah, Georgia location.
Bridge also identified the impact that the S&A method could have on their company broadly. By running ten sprint teams bi-monthly, each team could create about $250,000 in value per project. On speed alone, Shaw could benefit upwards of $2 million per year using this methodology.
In the time since the implementation of the survey, Shaw has seen great success. With the survey platform in place starting in January of 2023, Shaw has conducted over 50 surveys and has gotten nearly 10,000 responses to those surveys. And, they anticipate further growth in participation as they roll out the survey to broader divisions of the company in the next year.
In general, the Shaw team gained essential new tools and skills through the Speed and Agility training that influenced their efficiency and productivity moving forward. With the guidance of Bridge, Shaw is better positioned to embrace innovation and change and is empowered to use the S&A model to continuously accelerate their business for years to come.
Does your organization need support to accelerate change? Contact Bridge today for more information on our Speed and Agility services.