Agile project management:

implementation of an initialization process in churn squads

Abstract

The article presents a case of agile project management involving the formation of business squads aimed at combating churn while simultaneously conducting a structured team initialization process, making this approach repeatable and scalable. To achieve this, a descriptive case study consisting of five stages was employed: initiation, capability building, definition of mission and team composition, problematization, and the development of the roadmap and work backlog. The squads were created with the mission of addressing and reducing churn, understood as the movement within the customer base. They were divided into three types of Churn Squads: Retention (actions focused on retaining customers through targeted offers), Delinquency (monitoring and acting upon billing workflows and due-date structures), and Prediction (development of statistical models capable of forecasting customer behavior and trends before they occur). Each squad had its specific role and mission, making use of tools such as Big Data, Analytics, and Agile Marketing. The squad initialization process offers the significant advantage of being a scalable approach supported by strong stakeholder engagement from the outset, resulting in a substantial reduction in churn and an increase in revenue. These outcomes were made possible through context sharing, the application of structured methods, and the reduction of the learning curve in identifying data-driven business solutions (Big Data and Analytics). The article contributes by demonstrating a structured process that shortens learning time and enables more effective results.