fl group blockchain
scrum master & operations manager
FL Group UK > Jemjar. London (2018 - 2019)
the problem
FL Group wanted to launch a loyalty program app for clients to use in retail (restaurants and coffee shops to start with). The app was built using blockchain technology and the value proposition was that customers could some cashback via crypto and the company could get some percentage of the transaction via a shrinking algorithm.
There were two teams in London - the back-end team, developing a private blockchain network, and a front-end team, developing the mobile and web app using Ethereum. The app was planned to be launched in the UK market.
The existing working model was lacking governance, defined requirements, understanding of dependencies and estimation of time to deliver. They needed a strong Scrum Master to help both teams, as they were very interconnected and depending on each other.
At the same time, the company already had launched several apps (for different use cases) in the Chinese market, that were using Bitcoin.
THe contributionS
Increased transactions in 3x. Increased total revenue in 2.2x
* Convinced CTO to pivot strategy and instead of launching using Ethereum in the UK, we launched in China using Bitcoin. That made us:
* Reduce time to market in 2 quarters - no need to develop our own private blockchain network anymore.
* Connect our app with the other existing apps that were already launched in China using bitcoin (via Auth protocol and SSO). This achieved 3x more transactions, increasing total revenue by 2.2x.
* Revenue retrofitting to the other two apps, No need of marketing to acquire new customers
* Strong Operations Strategy, implementation and training, leading to:
* P0 bugs solved within hours, platform running smoothly.
* Selection, integration and implementation of the ticketing tooling system.
* Customer Support agents fully trained and fulfilling SLOs.
* 24x7 coverage through chat for asking help navigating or raising a bug.
* 100% customer satisfaction, measured with surveys, emails and .
* Massive team culture improvement, avoiding burn out and employee churn.
the learnings
I learnt a lot about Systems Design, as we had to refactor our architecture. As we faced a high churn on DevOps role (4 different DevOps managers in less than 1 year), I had to really dive deep, from the Testing, to storing, compute, pipelines, CICD, containerization, performance…
As I stepped in as Operations Manager, I learnt a lot about Operations - from Strategy to implementation, to leading an Operations team.
Also, I experienced how to define requirements with clear expectations and exit criteria for the Admin Panel of the app, when I acted as Product Manager for the first time too.
One of the biggest team culture improvement I am proud of in my career is the one I implemented here. The team was at risk of burn down. I implemented a culture shift with a high quality level of communication, respect and democracy. I achieve 0% churn rate and a happy cohesive team.