Vibrant Development in the Making – Organising the Development Function in a Professional Service Company

The purpose of this thesis was to develop an operating model for the development function in a professional service company called Efima Oyj. The commissioning organisation was a business unit providing financial administration services for medium and large companies. The newly established development team of the business unit was aiming at enabling more efficient and higher quality working as well as an increase in profitability by further developing policies, practises, and concepts. This thesis developed a wireframe description of the development function operating model to be iteratively further developed by the business unit. The theoretical framework is based on three components: innovations and innovation management, industrial and organisational psychology (I-O psychology), and the theories of development focusing on agile methods. The section on innovation discusses the classifications and emergence, the diffusion and lifecycles, and the management of innovations. The chapter of I-O psychology covers topics such as organisational learning and knowledge management, organisational culture, and change management in an organisation. The third section examines theories of agile development such as Lean, Scrum and Kanban, continuing with the methods for development prioritization, PDSA (plan-do-study-act) cycles and closing with system thinking in the business context. The actual work of the thesis was divided into two phases, the first focusing on research and the second on development. The nonstructured interviews within the organisation were used to identify obstacles to development in the research phase. The focus and the priorities for the development phase were based on the first phase interview results. During the development phase, the interview results were analysed and compared against the theoretical framework. Based on this analysis, a preliminary wireframe model was developed and described. This wireframe model was tested and iteratively further developed together with the organisation. As a result of this thesis, the organisation was able to start practical development work and to further refine its operating model to meet the organisation's challenges and needs. In the long run, there are two critical factors for the success of the operating model. First of all, the executive level commitment to the development work determines how well the results of development meet the actual needs. Secondly, the results of development work depend heavily on how well management is able to secure the resources needed for development work. The result is still just a wireframe and requires commitment and active leadership. It would also benefit from further development areas such as compatible metrics, automation of work steps, and consistent collection of customer feedback