Gillette Case Study: From Multi-Year Silos to a Record-Time Product Launch

I partnered with Gillette’s R&D and Commercial leadership to leverage Scrum for designing the Gillette Exfoliating Razor. This initiative included several multi-disciplinary teams involving technical, research, and commercial teams collaborating on one scaled Scrum borrowing patterns from the Nexus framework. Using Scrum to quickly learn and validate on the key leap of faith assumptions (LOFAs) with the technical and commercial communities playing “rugby” rather than the “relay race” contributed significantly to one of Gillette’s most successful product launches under very aggressive timelines. I continued to advise leaders in Gillette on how to leverage agility for other strategic complex initiatives as well how to go about scaling it more widely. This included standing up a “product operating model” - brand-oriented empowered product ownership and establishing stable brand/product teams. The journey is continuing.

Gillette faced a significant challenge. They needed a next-generation blockbuster razor in the market fast while tackling a complex market dynamic — men were shaving less frequently, and competition was growing. David Ingram, Senior Vice President of R&D, put it succinctly: “We (Technology and Commercial leaders) were given a challenge from our grooming CEO to design and commercialize a new razor faster than we’d ever done it before… We were quite honestly given a clear target for a launch time.” The project involved multiple stakeholders across Gillette, including the R&D, marketing, manufacturing, and consumer insights teams. This was a pivotal moment for Gillette.

The team considered several options for proceeding. Using their traditional approach was ruled out as being too slow, especially in light of recent experiences.

A theory of constraints project management approach (based on critical chain) was considered but was ruled more appropriate for accelerating the path once the proposition is locked, since it aims to optimize project execution but doesn’t excel at iterating across different perspectives frequently.

The team next turned to Scrum, which colleagues recommended as a best practice for “New Product Development.” They were wary, though. Scrum seemed prescriptive and formal, and they were concerned that a dogmatic application wouldn’t fly well within the context of razor design, which combines multiple deep disciplines and no software in sight.

I was recommended to David as someone who knew Scrum and Agile well, had a pragmatic approach, and had experience applying them outside of the classic software development environment.

We worked closely with Gillette to implement Scrum across their product teams. One of the first steps was to get the program’s leadership together to reflect on the context, the challenge, and the options for bringing empiricism and agility into their program. We agreed to implement a Scaled Scrum structure, organizing their 55-person team into 7-8 smaller, cross-functional Scrum teams, each responsible for a valuable aspect of the product (e.g. Shaving Surface, Handle and accessories, Packaging, Viability (Profitability), Commercial approach). We focused on creating a unified product backlog and synchronized sprints, which allowed us to tackle the highest risks first and adapt quickly as we learned more. While the teams worked on their own Increments, they also integrated the entire proposition frequently. For example, any razor design change showed up in the commercial claims and financial calculations within days, if not hours.

This enabled us to shift the way stakeholders were involved. Instead of traditional milestone check-ins that were months apart, we moved to more frequent stakeholder reviews after every sprint. This allowed the team to bring real-time insights and risks to the table, making it possible to make informed decisions quickly. As David mentioned, “What’s different is you need your set of stakeholders ready to engage in the actual issues that you have, not their perceived functional issues.”

The impact of these changes was immediate. By front-loading risk mitigation and involving stakeholders more frequently, the team was able to reduce the product development timeline to months instead of years. More importantly, frequent reviews with senior leadership created the space for challenging some “non-negotiables” that unlocked value-creation opportunities that were very tough to bring up in the traditional phase-gated process. Gillette’s new razor launched ahead of schedule, with exceptional market reception. David proudly shared, “Consumers that are buying this absolutely love the product and they’re telling us that they love it.”

The success wasn’t just in the product launch; it was also in how the team embraced a new way of working.

Gillette used Scrum to level up their innovation game. In order to make Scrum stick, it was crucial to focus on it as a pragmatic framework based on principles rather than follow dogma “by the book”. Some Scrum zealots might criticize some of the choices we made. But for us, it wasn’t about whether we should use Scrum. Scrum pointed us towards empiricism and empowered teams to innovate more effectively. Scrum made sense when we used that lens, and it was easier to adopt even though it was very foreign in the CPG space.

David: “We learned that working things according to the backlog, working the biggest risks first, and resolving those risks early has really changed the way that we look at how we’re doing the work internally in Gillette.” This shift is now paving the way for broader adoption of these agile practices across other products and teams at Gillette.

To get the full story check out this Scrum.org Video about the Gillette Scrum/Agile Journey

If you want to apply this style of cross-functional Scrum in your context, see Professional Scrum and Kanban support and Fixing Your Agility.