How Scrum Turned Things around at H&R Block
Happy New Years! And speaking of the new year, tax season is here so it only makes sense for us to review a case study of the largest tax preparation company that implemented Agile and Scrum.
In 2011, H&R Block brought in Braintrust Consulting to bring Agile and Scrum methodologies to the company. Braintrust Consulting went to work and in the 2012 tax season helped H&R release Block Live, a product that combined the online and in-person tax filing experience. Upon seeing how fast they were able to come out with this quality product, H&R realized the transformation had been a success and stuck with Scrum moving forward.
According to the Braintrust Group, here are some of the challenges that H&R Block faced when working to transition:
The team's knowledge and understanding of Agile was not consistent, which was causing delays in their work and contributing to the accumulation of technical debt. In addition, the lack of shared terminology and working agreements was hindering their progress.
The physical layout of the workspace at H&R Block made it difficult for teams to collaborate and effectively implement Agile. The teams were separated and isolated from one another, which limited their ability to work together and share ideas.
H&R Block's industry experiences significant fluctuations in demand due to the seasonality of tax season. This results in dramatic ups and downs in their workload.
Although teams had the technical training and knowledge of Scrum, they struggled to apply this knowledge in a practical setting and faced difficulties in overcoming roadblocks when they encountered issues in the real world.
Improved communication and transparency were very much needed.
In spite of the numerous challenges, Braintrust Consulting spent a year understanding how everything was operating at the tax preparation company and worked on implementing Agile in a customized way that adapted to H&R Block. Doing so has not only allowed the teams across the company to work in sync, but has also allowed H&R Block to maintain the lead in the world of tax preparation.