Effective Cross‑Team Collaboration in Ctrip’s Service Butler Project: An Agile Case Study

In 2016 Ctrip launched the Service Butler project with a one‑month deadline, involving four platforms (Ctrip APP, employee APP, PC console, merchant side) and 55 participants across seven cross‑functional teams.

Success hinged on explicit division of responsibilities: each team knew its scope, enabling rapid value delivery and avoiding duplicated effort.

To coordinate the many teams, Ctrip set up dedicated communication channels—mail groups, WeChat groups, daily status reports—and held regular requirement‑clarification and technical‑solution meetings to align understanding and reduce downstream changes.

The project adopted Scrum‑of‑Scrums, with representatives from each team meeting three times a week to discuss progress, resolve blockers, and reinforce trust.

Work was organized into four weekly sprints, each with clear micro‑goals, and a War‑Room was used for real‑time joint debugging, eliminating delays caused by email or phone exchanges.

Beyond processes, the team emphasized core values—mutual trust, tolerance, assistance, and humility—ensuring members supported each other when unexpected issues arose, such as a backend developer’s illness.

Through these practices, the 55‑person effort delivered the Service Butler’s first phase on schedule, demonstrating how clear division, disciplined agile rituals, and strong team spirit can drive rapid, high‑quality delivery in large‑scale software projects.