CASE STUDIES
Goalous
Activated the communication based on the targets among the membersand accelerated the business.
- The trigger was Mr. Ishida, who experienced other companies before JBI
- Three decisive factors
- Acceleration in the business
- A hope that Goalous will lead to the personal growth
JTB Business Innovators Inc.
About the Company
Its business is to improve the money flow around traveling.It has been supporting the domestic and international communication, which is expected to increase in the future, with new financial, payment, ICT solutions.
Employees
Around 100
Interviewees
Mr. Kato, Kenkichi, the Leader in System Solution Unit, Corporate Planning
Mr. Ishida, Kazuhiko, the Sub-leader in System Solution Unit, Corporate Planning
Mr. Ishida, Kazuya from Financial Payment Solution Team, System Solution Unit, Corporate Planning
The trigger was Mr. Ishida, who experienced other companies before JBI
Issues before Goalous
Mr. Ishida has joined in February 2018 and his history in the company is relatively short. First, Mr. Ishida introduced himself to us. “I was not hired as a new graduate and so that I saw things objectively since the entrance. Therefore, I guess it was easy for me to point out the issues that had been in the organization.” (Mr. Ishida) Mr. Ishida has built up his skill as a system engineer and JTB Business Innovators had many expectations on him. “Although I had my expertise as an engineer when I joined, I was asked to keep a wide range of views to improve the whole System Solution (SS) business.” (Mr. Ishida) With that sight, he said he found the following tasks in the team.
Three Decisive Factors in the Goalous Introduction
Background on Goalous introduction
Goalous has the concept of GKA in its root. In the GKA model, a Goal and Key Results to achieve them are defined, and Actions are made every day. The model helps the team and the individuals to bring meaningful and efficient Actions towards the Goals, and let everyone in the team to know each other's progress. Mr. Ishida pointed out the three tasks in the SS teams and suggested Goalous as a solution to the tasks. According to Mr. Ishida, the tasks in the SS were as follow:
(Tasks to be solved #1) Difficulties in understanding the work progress
“Since SS deals with system development, it was not easy to set concrete objective figures like sales jobs do. Each dedicates on his/her range of work and therefore, it seemed difficult to set a goal and to improve the skill as a whole team.”
(Tasks to be solved #2) Deficit of communication between the members
“There seemed to be little collaboration between the supervisors and individuals, nor among the members. As a result, following up didn't seem to occur a lot.”
(Tasks to be solved #3) Low speed toward targets
“There should have been many more chances for a progress review, but actually, we had it once a half year. There are indeed some good points in having few reviews. However, since there were few interactions between the members, some business processes, such as adjusting and improving business process when somebody is doing wrong, seemed to be ineffective and was taking the time.
Acceleration in the business speed
About the Goal function
It has been four months since the start. Mr. Ishida has been feeling the steady change in the teams. One of the SS works is to propose system solutions fit for the situations of other departments upon requests. Communication through Goalous is showing its effect as a solution. “For instance, when we asked for opinions about the order from the general affairs department, we soon received ideas and one of them is expected to be adopted. Such speed in the business was not possible before Goalous.” (Mr. Kato, the SS Unit Leader)
No matter how effective a tool is, it will not fully contribute to its role unless the whole team uses it. According to Mr. Kato, they have not fully taken out 100% of the Goalous' capability.
“SS is a system development department. One of its goals is to complete the project on which it is working. For some employees, setting numeric goals that are connected to one of the projects is a bit challenging. For example, when we had a Key Result of “Maintain the quality and deliver by the due date,” some members seem not used to post related actions on Goalous. (Mr. Kato, the SS Unit Leader)
For the members as such, we advice to use Goalous in more simple ways. They don’t have to persist on numeric goals. First, they should just get used to using it and share everyday actions with everyone. It could be “Today I met this guy from that company”, “Business requirement definition started!”, “Estimation completed!” or “How would you cope with this request?” etc. We're aiming to solve the original tasks, and want to foster a mindset to share the everyday works. (Mr. Kato, the SS Unit Sub-leader)
Hoping it will lead to the development of personnel
Outcomes Goalous Application
Mr. Ishida is holding the following expectations for the SS's future as a result of Goalous application.
“I'm hoping that the active communication through Goalous would penetrate over the company, and want to build an organization consist of the members with problem consciousness and awareness. Also, to survive in the IT industry, which improves day by day, we need to have an open mind to collaborate with others. By using Goalous and making the organization and individuals open, I hope they would grow into IT specialists who would make contributions in whatever circumstances.
Achieving individuals’ goals mean in short, to grow. Goalous is a tool to help people grow.
Thank you for the feedback from the members using Goalous on sites!
