The Power of Aligned Teams: How Portugal's National Postal Service Achieves Company Alignment?

CTT, Portugal's national postal service, has a long-standing tradition of innovation and adaptability. With centuries of history, the organization is no stranger to transformation. However, challenges in team alignment and operational efficiency prompted CTT to embark on a new initiative to enhance its processes. This commitment to improvement led to remarkable gains in delivery cycles, throughput, team engagement, and client satisfaction. 

Staying ahead meant seamlessly connecting their teams, strategy, and operations. Their recent partnership with Businessmap has been a major shift toward outcome-driven work and achieving company alignment. 

In this blog, we’ll explore the challenges CTT faced, the key decisions made, the actions taken, and the impactful results their team achieved. 

Chapter 1: The Challenges that Set Teams Back

Every transformative journey comes with its challenges, and CTT was no exception. The organization faced several obstacles that hindered its agility and efficiency. To name a few of them:   

• Lack of integrated flow management metrics, making statistical predictability difficult. 
• Limited visibility into team dependencies. 
• Fragmented management across strategic, operational, and coordination levels. 
• Difficulty integrating OKRs with operational and tactical work. 
• Workflow inefficiencies that slowed delivery times. 

Chapter 2: The Turning Point – Finding the Right Partner for Transformation 

Recognizing these challenges, CTT’s leadership understood that they needed more than just a strategy management tool - they needed a strategic partner to help align their teams and streamline their processes. 

This realization led them to the next phase of their journey: adopting Businessmap, a decision that brought transformative improvements across the organization. 

Chapter 3: The Beginning of Creating Team Alignment 

At the beginning of its continuous growth, the company set a clear goal: achieve true team alignment by integrating strategy with execution. This shift, championed by a dedicated agile transformation team, focused on several key initiatives: 

• Workshops and Training: Businessmap professionals collaborated with CTT’s agility team to introduce platform functionalities in a hands-on, collaborative manner. 
• Flow Metrics for Continuous Improvement: By replacing traditional estimates with data-driven decision-making, teams could optimize workflows and eliminate bottlenecks. 
• Custom Project Dashboards for Visibility: Teams understood better work in progress, making dependencies transparent and reducing inefficiencies. 
• Explicit Policies in Workflows: Establishing clear arrival and departure criteria for work phases ensured greater clarity, better alignment to strategic priorities, and better predictability. 

As Régis Borges Amorim, Director of Digital Experience and Head of Agile at CTT, explained: “Choosing Businessmap represented more than a technological change; it was a strategic step to shift from an output (tasks) to outcomes (results) mindset.” 

»» Read the full story of the CTT and Businessmap partnership.

Chapter 4: The Measurable Impact 

As the saying goes, "Let your results do the talking." CTT is a shining example of how the right approach - coupled with the right tools - can drive significant improvements through small yet strategic changes. 

Within just a few months, CTT saw tangible improvements across its operations. The company could directly connect its strategy and operations while fostering strong team alignment, creating greater engagement and alignment with its goals. 

The numbers speak for themselves, proving that CTT is on the right path in its evolution. Let’s take a closer look. 

1. Faster Delivery Cycles 

CTT’s average delivery cycle ranged between 99 and 120 days. With better workflow management and improved visibility, this number dropped to an average of 63 days. 

2. Increased Throughput 

More mature teams reported throughput improvements of 15% to 17%, demonstrating how better alignment translated to greater productivity. 

3. Reduced Work Queues 

Implementing the Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR) strategy, CTT reduced queue volumes by 55%, ensuring smoother workflows and less work stagnation. 

4. Better Team Performance 

As a result of fostering a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration across departments significantly improved, leading to a more productive work environment, reduced cognitive load, and greater clarity in priorities. For example, the operations team reported a 30% increase in productivity after introducing explicit work policies. 

Chapter 5: The Strategic and Cultural Impact of CTT’s Transformation 

Beyond the operational gains, CTT’s transformation had a broader strategic and cultural impact.  

• Better Decision-Making: With real-time insights, teams could make informed decisions based on real and reliable data, aligning their work with overarching company goals. 

César Ribeiro, Director of IT Governance and Portfolio at CTT, summed it up best: “With the improvements brought by Businessmap, we became more assertive in decisions, prioritizing work in alignment with OKRs, which was a game-changer for our way of working.” 

• Cost Savings: Eliminating unnecessary manual processes and improving workflow efficiency reduced operational costs. 
  Improved Customer Experience: Faster deliveries and improved service quality resulted in better internal and external customer satisfaction. 
• Enhanced Automation and Error Reduction: Incorporating poka-yoke techniques helped prevent errors in repetitive tasks, ensuring compliance with legal standards. 
• Improved Planning Process: Monte Carlo simulations revolutionized their planning, significantly cutting down on estimation time and allowing teams to focus on higher value-adding activities. 

Looking Ahead: A Future Built on Aligned Teams 

At the heart of every transformation are the people who drive change.  

CTT’s success highlights a fundamental truth: alignment is the key to agility, efficiency, and lasting growth. 

If you’re looking to achieve similar results, start by aligning your teams, strategy, and operations. Like CTT, you’ll find that when teams work together with clarity and purpose, extraordinary results follow. And just like the key players in this story, your transformation could start with alignment.