Talent Map
Case-Study

Ottawa-based software developer TalentMap has conducted over 11,000 employee engagement surveys for
companies seeking to improve the morale and productivity of their workforce. In the last 23 years, it has
compiled a vast database (based on interviews with 14-million employees across North America) which it
uses to help employers discern what organizational changes need to be made in order to make employees
happier and more invested in seeing the company they work for succeed.

In early 2020, however, TalentMap founder and CEO Sean Fitzpatrick was dismayed to discover that both the
quality and quantity of work produced by his own 25-person staff was beginning to slip. His software
development team was missing deadlines, which in turn, was hurting the productivity of the sales and
marketing divisions. To get his company back on track, he hired Toronto-based Scrum Masters Inc., an agile
training and consulting company.

“We were struggling with how to adopt a successful agile or scrum process,” says Fitzpatrick. “We knew what
to do, but we didn’t know how to embed it into the organization in a sustainable, long-lasting way.”
Scrum Masters’ solution was two-fold. First, it provided a four-hour boot camp to re-acquaint TalentMap’s
software team with the key principles of scrum. Then, over the next 13 weeks, Scrum Masters helped
TalentMap tweak and adapt these principles until they became second nature.

“Almost immediately we saw fewer defects in software development and productivity went way up,” says
Fitzgerald. “We weren’t missing deadlines, and because of that, we’ve been able to increase our revenue and
prices.”

Fitzpatrick was so pleased with the results he brought Scrum Masters back in the fall of 2021 to work with his
client delivery team, who received the same crash course in scrum principles. “Our services levels have
improved. Our teams are communicating better amongst themselves, and everyone is happier because we
are consistently delivering product on time.

“Now I have 100-per-cent confidence we are going to meet deadlines whereas before I had 20 per cent
confidence,” says Fitzpatrick. “As a small business owner, that means less stress, anxiety and pressure –
which is huge.”