Case Study

Case Study: Ultimate Software Reinvents Its Development Shop To Stay On Its Game

November 3rd, 2010
Jeffrey Hammond, null
Jeffrey Hammond
With contributors:
Mary Gerush , Adam Knoll

Summary

Ultimate Software finds itself in a highly competitive market: It is a relatively small player compared with industry giants such as Oracle and SAP. Given Ultimate's smaller size, it can't simply throw more resources into projects; it needs to work smarter. Six years ago, Ultimate Software Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Adam Rogers decided to transform his software development organization into a Partner Player shop: one focused on creating high-performance software teams that create a competitive advantage for the company. Ultimate started with Lean Software processes and then retooled its talent acquisition and retention processes to attract and keep creative, intrinsically motivated development professionals. Six years later, Ultimate's bets have paid off: It has filled its shop with highly creative, autonomous, Agile feature teams and runs it using a very flat management structure. Ultimate's employees regard Ultimate as a great place to work — and its customers see the results of Ultimate Software's focus on quality.

Want to read the full report?

Contact us to become a client

This report is available for individual purchase ($1495).

Forrester helps business and technology leaders use customer obsession to accelerate growth. That means empowering you to put the customer at the center of everything you do: your leadership strategy, and operations. Becoming a customer-obsessed organization requires change — it requires being bold. We give business and technology leaders the confidence to put bold into action, shaping and guiding how to navigate today's unprecedented change in order to succeed.