Software Delivery Process Improvement for Loyalty Marketing Company

The Challenge Ahead

At LoyaltyOne, the operator behind Canada’s AIR MILES® program, one of the company’s largest delivery teams was struggling to meet expectations.

Despite appearing productive on paper, the team faced serious delivery and communication challenges:

• Feature delays were extensive—customer-facing initiatives were taking over 250 days to release, even when internal development tasks were “done.”
• Over 50% of work was spent fixing defects, pointing to quality concerns.
• Leaders lacked visibility into what was causing delays or where bottlenecks were occurring.
• Business stakeholders were frustrated, questioning the value and speed of IT—often assuming delays were due to lack of effort, rather than hidden handoffs and coordination gaps.

The end result was a breakdown in trust and stalled innovation, despite efforts to “go Agile.”

How I Helped

I joined the organization to help solve the delivery disconnect and improve how work flowed from idea to execution. My focus was to create business alignment, reduce waste, and speed up delivery of high-priority features.

Here’s what I did:

1. Mapped the end-to-end delivery flow:
   I uncovered the full journey from business idea to product launch—including all the unseen handoffs, dependencies, and review cycles that created drag. This helped pinpoint non-technical blockers like delayed decisions, missing inputs, or unclear priorities.
2. Broke down silos and built visibility:
   I restructured how the team and its cross-functional partners worked together. I created a shared workspace (both physical and digital) that allowed product managers, UX, operations, and developers to collaborate in real time, making progress—and blockers—visible to all.
3. Established regular checkpoints with actionable data:
   I introduced simple, focused touchpoints where teams could review their progress, address blockers quickly, and use real-world performance metrics (like time-to-market and bottleneck frequency) to improve how they worked together.
4. Helped leadership make better trade-offs:
   I designed a reporting dashboard that gave executives insight into where delays were happening and what was being done about them. This shifted conversations from blame to solutions—and created buy-in for more investment.
5. Piloted direct user feedback loops:
   Rather than relying on outdated demo meetings, I set up informal usability tests and pulse checks with call center staff to get closer to real customer pain points. This data led to smarter prioritization of product improvements.

Business Impact

• Time-to-Market Cut by Over 65%: Average delivery time for new features dropped from 261 days to 85 days.
• Higher Product Quality: Fewer post-release defects and better alignment with user needs, thanks to direct customer feedback.
• Increased Business Confidence: Stakeholders shifted from frustration to support, actively participating in roadmapping and unblocker discussions.
• Improved Efficiency: Work was better sequenced, fewer delays from handoffs, and decisions happened faster due to visibility and shared ownership.
• Scalable Blueprint: This initiative became the model for other departments, leading to broader funding and the expansion of high-performing teams.

Testimonies

Shuman has some transformative superpowers. He joined our team and within a short time everything was working like a well-oiled machine. He gave us the ability to self organize and facilitate. He makes great decisions based on metrics and through experimentation.

I really appreciate his honesty and friendly attitude. You can count on him to tell you the truth even when it’s not what people may want to hear. But even bad news is more palatable when it comes from Shuman because you know he is coming from a good place and he only wants to improve the system and fix the problems. 

Amit AsgharEngineering Manager @ Air Miles

Shuman has many great qualities but I think his communication skills really shine. Facilitating sessions, speaking in front of others and taking the lead in team meetings is clearly a strength for Shuman. His presentations in front of large groups are funny, concise and well rated after the fact. He comes prepared to team retrospectives or planning sessions and makes sure that the outcomes of the meeting are clear and completed in the allotted time frame. He is comfortable in every situation and someone I highly recommend.

Ron HoustonAVP, Technology @ Air Miles

Shuman is a unicorn.
I don’t think there is anyone out there like him.
I could go on about his core competencies and how he can get a large cross-functional team with different objectives to align and work towards a common goal or how he is always working to get the team to improve efficiencies and time to deliver or how he challenges the group to think about the bigger picture and aim high.

You might find all of that in the average delivery professional but what Shuman has is a passion and energy that is infectious. He always brings his best self and is able to get that same quality from his team. He holds himself to a high standard and when you are around him you don’t want to disappoint him; you want to follow his lead and deliver your best

Lori FranzeDirector, Collector Experience @ Air Miles