About Fruugo
Fruugo enables retailers everywhere to sell to shoppers anywhere.
As a global marketplace, Fruugo understands the complexities and intricacies of cross-border trade and offers the quickest, easiest, and most risk-free way of selling your products globally.
Customers can shop in their language and currency from anywhere in the world, enjoying a truly localized experience with exchange rates and shipping costs, all managed by Fruugo.
As more customers shift to shopping online, they are increasingly shopping internationally. Fruugo’s highly diverse range of customers and retailers is empowered by its innovative technology and knowledge, allowing both to connect seamlessly in over 40 countries around the world.
Introducing Ben Cutler and his role within Fruugo
Ben is the Lead Scrum Master at Fruugo, where he’s been making an impact for nearly two years. With a strong background in development, testing, automation, DevOps, and leadership, Ben brings a wealth of hands-on experience to his role.
While Ben serves as Scrum Master for multiple teams, he also plays an integral part in driving transformative initiatives across the organization. His work focuses on improving predictability at Fruugo and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
In addition to his Scrum Master duties, Ben also dabbles as a Jira administrator, customizing and automating workflows to streamline processes. His goal is to empower teams, provide valuable insights into the business, and ultimately help the teams move faster.
Background
Fruugo started using ActionableAgile® Analytics in January 2023 - shortly before Ben started with the company. Ben did however drive the adoption and integration of Portfolio Forecaster in 2024 which is now used alongside ActionableAgile® Analytics.
Using data to support decision-making and agile practices is something the team at Fruugo has come to have at the core of its team.
Fruugo are heavily invested in the Atlassian suite and along with Jira and Confluence they also use Jira Service Management, Bitbucket, Bamboo and Status Page.
The Situation
When Ben joined Fruugo in 2023, the team had already started using ActionableAgile® Analytics. While its adoption across the engineering teams was still in its early stages, the Agile team had started to embrace a data-driven decision-making mindset and a strong focus on continuous improvement.
ActionableAgile® Analytics, seamlessly integrated with Jira, quickly became a valuable tool in supporting these efforts.
At the time, Fruugo’s teams were primarily Scrum-based, with a few Kanban teams. Many teams were still relying on Story Points and deterministic estimates. Ben introduced his teams to a more forward-thinking approach: forecasting with Throughput data and Monte Carlo simulations within ActionableAgile® Analytics.
After reviewing the data and finding it to be more reliable and engaging the team in more meaningful conversations, the teams quickly adopted this new method. Other Scrum Masters have since followed suit, applying the same approach with their teams, and found similar success
How Fruugo uses ActionableAgile® Analytics
Ben mentioned that the team at Fruugo use ActionableAgile® Analytics every day in some shape or form. This can be seen in many of the traditional Scrum Events.
Sprint Planning
At the team level, ActionableAgile® Analytics plays a crucial role in sprint planning. By leveraging Monte Carlo simulations, teams address the key question: “What should our commitments be?”
This data-driven approach prevents overloading teams with work that cannot be delivered, improving predictability and ensuring sustainable commitments.
Daily Stand Ups:
During daily stand-ups, the Work Item Age Chart is a standout feature for Fruugo. This chart helps teams decide what to prioritize, a practice Ben described as invaluable.
Inspired by Daniel Vacanti’s guidance to “focus on your oldest ticket first,” the teams use this visual tool to identify and address aging work items effectively.
Retrospectives:
In team retrospectives, Fruugo often incorporates data from ActionableAgile® Analytics to review key metrics like Cycle Time and Throughput. While retrospectives don’t always rely heavily on data, Ben emphasized that these insights are especially valuable when the team wants to assess performance and identify areas for workflow improvement.
As Ben put it, reviewing this data is "great for assessing performance and focusing on the team’s flow."
This flexible approach allows teams to strike a balance between reflective discussions and actionable insights, ensuring retrospectives remain both meaningful and productive.
Large-scale Project Planning with Portfolio Forecaster
Outside of events
At Fruugo, Portfolio Forecaster is an essential tool that extends beyond the typical day-to-day Agile events. It plays a critical role in facilitating broader conversations, setting realistic expectations, and supporting key decision-making processes.
One of its uses is in Fruugo's Portfolio Review meetings, which take place every two weeks. These meetings bring together senior leadership and representatives from all product areas to review progress on the current strategic priorities.
To prepare for these sessions, Scrum Masters and their Product Owners (POs) will meet to review the most up-to-date forecasts provided by the Portfolio Forecaster. This ensures everyone is equipped with clear, data-driven insights to present during the Portfolio Review meetings.
What sets the Portfolio Forecaster apart is its flexibility. Ben highlights that it’s not tied to a rigid schedule and can be used dynamically to support planning and prioritization whenever needed.
For example:
When a batch of new work is refined, the team consults the forecaster.
After completing a significant amount of work, the forecast is updated.
When requests arise to introduce new work, the tool can show the potential impact.
This continuous forecasting approach allows the team to make informed decisions in real-time. By having access to accurate and up-to-date data, Fruugo can engage in meaningful conversations at both the business and portfolio levels. While the tool isn’t monitored every hour, its availability ensures clarity and confidence in decision-making whenever it’s needed.
Fruugo’s Results
50 Work Items, 4,000 Days: A Workflow Overhaul Success Story
Ben shared a remarkable transformation story from Fruugo's IT Support team, which handles internal tech support and requests.
Initially, the team faced significant challenges in managing their workload efficiently. Balancing dual responsibilities and providing support while also contributing to project work, meant they couldn’t focus fully on either. As a result, their work-in-progress began to spiral out of control.
Using ActionableAgile® Analytics, the team discovered that in September 2023, they had approx 50 work items in progress, with a staggering total age of 4,000 days (data provided by the Work In Progress Run Chart).
By leveraging the insights gained from ActionableAgile® Analytics, the team initiated focused discussions—similar to retrospectives—about prioritization and process improvement. They used the WIP Run Chart and Cycle Time data to:
Identify request types taking longer to resolve.
Prioritize efforts to improve these request types.
Gather more data to address recurring bottlenecks.
Enhance processes, such as improving request submissions to prevent inefficiencies.
The results were dramatic. Today, the team has reduced their work-in-progress to 12 items with a total age of only 77 days.
This shift has transformed their service desk from "not very good" to a fit-for-purpose, highly effective service. Reflecting on the achievement, Ben shared: “I like to look at that graph on difficult days or when I feel like I haven’t made much progress. It reminds me that we’ve achieved something.”
Teams more informed
Ben shared how ActionableAgile® Analytics is empowering teams to make more informed, data-driven decisions. While the organization is still refining its overall approach, many teams, especially the Product Owners (POs), are now much clearer on their direction and how they will achieve their goals.
By utilizing ActionableAgile® Analytics and Portfolio Forecaster, the teams can now make more strategic decisions about prioritization. This ranges from small-scale decisions, like evaluating the impact of adding an extra ticket, to larger, more strategic choices, such as assessing the consequences of taking on an additional week’s worth of work.
This deeper understanding allows teams to better weigh trade-offs and fully understand the implications of their decisions on ongoing projects. Ben emphasized that this level of clarity and insight is something they aim to extend to the wider organization, ensuring that everyone can benefit from a consistent, data-driven approach to planning and prioritization.
Summary of Outcomes
Improved Team Alignments/ Expectations
Dramatically Improved Service Response Time
Improved Predictability At A Team and Business Level.
Faster Value Delivery
Informed Conversations and Decision-Making
What Does the Future Look Like for Fruugo?
Placing Greater Emphasis on Flow
Looking ahead, Fruugo is prioritizing improvements in team flow, with a specific focus on optimizing the end-to-end work delivery process. Challenges such as limited automated testing and deployment delays have highlighted key areas for improvement, which will be addressed to create a smoother, more efficient delivery pipeline.
By leveraging Cycle Time and Throughput data from ActionableAgile® Analytics, Fruugo will identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in team workflows. The goal is to collaborate closely with teams to increase throughput, streamline processes, and ensure a seamless flow of work from start to finish.
This renewed focus on flow is vital to Fruugo’s future, as it will help reduce delays, boost efficiency, and ultimately deliver more value to the business.
Experimenting with OKRs
At Fruugo, Ben has been piloting Allan Kelly’s Agile OKR framework, which is now being rolled out across all teams. The adoption of OKRs is designed to empower teams to design solutions that can be delivered within a committed timeframe, while also fostering a shared understanding and alignment across the business.
When combined with complementary practices like Story Mapping and slicing, OKRs are driving greater focus, reducing distractions and increasing value.
Additionally, tools like ActionableAgile® Analytics and Portfolio Forecaster provide valuable data and insights to guide conversations around work sizing, prioritization, and ongoing stakeholder discussions.
Comments