Natura&Co optimizes resources and increases R&D visibility with Objective consulting

Initiative enhanced production capacity management in the R&D area and impacted 370 people by applying scaled agility in a complex scenario

Natura&Co, in partnership with Objective, a consulting firm specialized in business governance and technology, improved the production capacity management of its R&D area through the application of agile techniques and strategies. This resource optimization journey, which directly impacted 220 people and indirectly benefited around 150 employees, highlights the importance of agile practices in integrated and complex scenarios to boost efficiency and increase productivity in large companies.

Visibility in complex scenarios

The Research and Development (R&D) area of Natura &Co, responsible for product creation and innovation, identified an opportunity to improve team capacity visibility and achieve greater efficiency in workflow. This lack of visibility made it difficult to accurately predict delivery capacity and identify major flow blockers. These challenges hindered decision-making and the company’s ability to respond to demands for new products and innovations.

Building a value stream

To address these challenges, Objective mapped and optimized the workflow through a detailed analysis of the product development process, from initial demand to the final delivery of the R&D phase. This process enabled the identification of work phases for each demand, team connections, and the construction of a value stream. The project also included the identification of optimization opportunities.

As a result, it was possible to identify the productive capacity of each of the 13 R&D teams, according to their skills and work volume in progress. These changes, along with real-time activity monitoring through digital tools recommended by Objective, provided managers with greater visibility to make informed decisions about team capacity, allowing them to meet organizational strategies without overloading and with optimized flow.

For Natura &Co, the work developed by Objective boosted the productivity and efficiency of the area and brought greater visibility to management. “In integrated and complex scenarios like ours, implementing these agile techniques and strategies was fundamental for the evolution of the R&D area. Objective enabled a unified view of processes and resources, bringing more clarity and predictability for managers and teams.”

Predictability and strategic decisions

The project resulted in several benefits for Natura &Co, such as a clear view of each team’s capacity and the time needed to meet strategic demands, and workflow optimization. Additionally, this journey brought a unified view through dashboards and BI for management decision-making with visibility of bottlenecks, blockages, and waste.

For Natura &Co, optimizing the process management evolved the allocation of people, now done more strategically based on team skills and availability. “Knowing what is being done and at which stage is essential for decision-making. This brings short, medium, and long-term predictability and ensures the quality of deliveries.”

Recognition at Agile Trends

To consolidate this successful partnership, at the Agile Trends 2024 event, the Natura case was recognized in fifth place in the ‘Scale’ category of the award, which featured several other competitors. The awarded project impacted over 370 people and underscores the positive results of strategic collaboration and the importance of agile practices to solve complex challenges and achieve business success.

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