Data-driven engineering transformation
The Challenge
In order to stay lean and agile, Thomson Reuters set out on a DevOps transformation. Leaders also needed to uncover opportunities for higher efficiency and get more insights into their teams’ workflow.
Thankfully, Thomson Reuters already had a strong belief in the power of collaboration, and understood the importance of truly knowing their customers—and the teams delivering best-in-class products to them.
Who they are
Thomson Reuters is a leading provider of business information services. Their products include highly specialized information-enabled software and tools for legal, tax, accounting and compliance professionals combined with the world’s most global news service: Reuters.
Thomson Reuters by the numbers
Founded in 2008
Headquartered in Toronto, Canada
500,000 customers
Data-driven workflow improvements
“Flow is a very good indicator of where the problem is. We started reducing unnecessary meetings. We started streamlining so there’s more time for developers to actually focus on their task. The biggest surprise was the change in coding days—it jumped from 2.3 to 3 almost immediately.”
Abesh Rajasekharan, Director of Technology
The Solution
Enthusiastic adoption (or lack of it) can make or break a new technology strategy. Thomson Reuters conducted a strategic, thoughtful rollout of Pluralsight Flow, beginning with team members who expressed the most interest and were forward-thinking in their ideas about building a high-performing culture. Those teams were then able to become advocates and evangelize the use of the platform across the broader technology organization. Thomson Reuters also leveraged Pluralsight’s training and onboarding resources to help set a positive tone for employees, which was especially useful given the height-of-the-pandemic timing, which had many people looking for ways to reenergize, reprioritize and get back to doing what they love: coding.
Thomson Reuters gave each product engineering leader a goal of increasing coding days by 10%. By utilizing Pluralsight Flow as a measuring tool, they were able to track metrics and empower teams to define processes that are repeatable, simple and free of obstruction. And by creating an engaged culture through coding days, they’ve been able to see measurable differences during their engineering transformation.
Data from Pluralsight Flow reinforced the value of flexible work at Thomson Reuters, and allowed leaders and teams to course-correct and ensure everyone was still meeting goals if working remotely. They were also able to use Flow data to shape their return-to-work strategy once it was safe to do so.
The key benefits of Pluralsight for Thomson Reuters
Stronger communication between leaders and team members
Flow has allowed team members to better demonstrate their value and equipped leaders to set clearer expectations.
More coding power
Average coding days increased from 2.3 to 3 per developer. That equates to around 3 weeks per engineer per year.
More data-driven decisions
Before Flow, many initiatives were based on qualitative feeling, and wouldn't stick internally. Now Flow is brought into daily standups to keep teams aligned and demonstrate leadership.
Better ability to show the value of different strategies
With Flow data in their corner, leaders at Thomson Reuters are able to demonstrate the value of DevOps implementation, cloud adoption and more.
Retaining top talent in a competitive market
“The talent market is moving so quickly. I think for us, the ability to provide best-in-class tools and capabilities will help us maintain the staff that we need. We've also used Flow to look for learning opportunities for our internal employees, giving them the training and the expertise that they need to develop and solve for the customer needs as we go forward.”
Jason Rapaccuiolo, Vice President of Audit Technology
The next steps
An ongoing conversation about excellence
Thomson Reuters has been able to establish new standards and processes to help everyone work more effectively and deliver value to customers faster. Flow continues to enable interesting new conversations between managers and engineers, thanks to engineers being able to better showcase their performance and leaders being able to set more specific expectations for new and current employees. And thanks to their commitment to being data-driven, they’re having more valuable one-on-ones than ever before.
Seeing through clearer lenses
“The insights that we've gained from Flow have really made us faster, leaner and more strategic. They've aligned our team's performance much more closely to the needs of our customers.”
Jason Rapaccuiolo, Vice President of Audit Technology