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Formula 1 - Race Track Feedback and Governance

Written by Jon Tollerup | Mar 29, 2021 6:46:05 AM

OVERVIEW

According to Formula 1 legend Niki Lauda, the F1 world championship will not be decided by speed - but by the team who can produce the most reliable car.* A leading Formula 1 team based in the UK have been using Decision Focus as their car feedback management solution.

The Challenge

All Formula 1 teams continuously have to transform their cars for the following season to comply with a raft of new technical regulations and ensure that the changes do not impact the overall car reliability. The existing tools in place to capture feedback were not sufficiently scalable to meet the ongoing changes.

The solution

The Formula 1 team partnered with Decision Focus to support the implementation of a car feedback management solution. Decision Focus is a flexible platform that is widely used to implement portfolio management processes.

The result

In summary, the results are full visibility of the types of feedback items received, ability to address important feedback items before the next event, and process improvements through a more proactive approach to managing feedback. Car reliability has considerably improved with Decision Focus.

“Decision Focus is providing the visibility and process flows we need to ensure that important feedback items are visible to the teams responsible for putting in place containments or countermeasures. Furthermore, across the company we are reducing the overall amount of time spent chasing the status of feedback items, and this is helping the department heads to manage by exception and facilitate a more proactive approach.”
Head of IT

Transformation of cars

All Formula 1 teams have had to completely transform their cars for the forthcoming season to comply with
a raft of new technical regulations and ensure that the changes do not impact overall car reliability. The technical changes potentially result in more feedback items for the car team to handle. The solution for one of the teams, implemented by the team at Decision Focus UK, provides process support, dashboards and a central car feedback repository for the entire company. This helps them collaborate around capturing, managing and tracking all car related feedback gathered from race and non-race events.

With a dramatic increase in car feedback expected during the forthcoming seasons, as a result of the new technical regulations, the team realised that the existing tooling they had in place to capture car feedback was not sufficiently scalable to meet the anticipated changes.

In particular, there were gaps between the process flows and dashboard over¬views that ensure followup on valuable feedback. If the team misses critical feedback items and does not follow up before the next race event, this can have a major impact on car reliability, which in turn will cost the team valuable points.

Full visibility of feedback items

The Engineering and IT department conducted a market survey to evaluate potential tool support, and selected Decision Focus - a flexible platform that is widely used to implement portfolio management processes.

Decision Focus provides the Formula 1 team with a feedback management solution that improves car reliability. Overall advantages are full visibility and increased proactivity.

“Decision Focus is providing the visibility and process flows we need to ensure that important feedback items are visible to the teams responsible for putting in place containments or countermeasures. Furthermore, across the company we are reducing the overall amount of time spent chasing the status of feedback items, and this is helping the department heads to manage by exception and facilitate a more proactive approach,”
Head of IT

Top-down approach

The key to the success of implementing Decision Focus is to quickly identify critical stakeholders, understand their pain points and the decisions that they need to make. This top-down consultative approach guides the implementation and provides a framework to help manage scope creep as the project progresses and more stakeholders get involved.

Decision Focus is highly configurable, and this flexibility lends itself to an iterative prototyping approach. Customers get to shape the solution at an early stage through the use of working prototypes – an essential feature for the success of the new feedback management system.

“Decision Focus is adding value by improving collaboration between departments and providing prioritisation support, helping each team focus their resources on high value items in the run up to the race season. The commitment, flexibility and general quality of work from the team at Decision Focus was superb, and I doubt we would have met the deadline with anyone else”
Head of IT

About Formula 1

Formula 1 identifies a unique genre of motor racing which has a long and distinguished history. ‘Formula’ refers to the specific set of regulations governing the cars, whilst the ‘1’ denotes the championship’s status as the highest level of international motorsport recognised by the governing body, the FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile).

Today 10 teams, each responsible for designing and constructing their own car, contest the constructors’ championship, with each team fielding two drivers who individually contest the drivers’ championship.

The Formula 1 team are leveraging portfolio management principles to improve car reliability.

Decision Focus is used for:

  • Managing car feedback
  • Role-based overviews
  • Prioritising & status reporting
  • New parts list
  • NDT testing
  • FIA Regulation

WHY MOVE TO DECISION FOCUS

Ease of use and simplicity of ownership. Our complete solution, supporting all GRC stakeholders, comes in one low license cost. We can quickly help you tailor it to fit your exact needs and give your users a system they love to use.

Risk Dashboard (example)

Risk Landscape (example)

A fully integrated GRC system

Decision Focus is not only for governance, it is not only for risk and not only for compliance. Decision Focus is a fully integrated system that enables you to manage all three areas in a single platform, which also supports Internal Audit. No more silos. We offer you a solution that breaks down internal barriers and lets you manage all aspects of GRC in a simple manner - with the same line of thinking and a common terminology throughout your organization. It will save you time and money while enabling you to solve more diversified tasks.

A system for everybody

If you can use a smart phone, you can use Decision Focus. In fact, you can use it on your smart phone. We believe GRC should be embedded in your organization so everybody with a role in GRC feels confident with the tools. No more ivory towers. It’s extremely user-friendly and easy to configure. It is designed to intuitively engage employees at all levels, even those who only use the system every third month. And this is not something we just say. Decision Focus has one of the highest NPS (Net Promotor Score) in the industry.