“We stopped calling them failures,” says backend engineer James Okafor. “We called them crust cracks . And you fix crust cracks with a little extra dough and pressure. That became our troubleshooting mantra.”
Launched in Q1 of this year, Project R (the “R” standing for Resilience, Renewal, and Results ) was designed to overhaul the company’s legacy customer feedback integration system. The “Apple Pie” moniker emerged during a brainstorming session when team lead Marissa Chen noted, “You can’t rush a good pie, and you can’t fake the recipe.” project r team apple pie
But the real win, according to executive sponsor Linda Graves, is cultural. “This team reminded the whole org that process doesn’t have to be rigid to be rigorous. They made room for creativity, accountability, and even a little fun—hence the apple pie potluck every Friday.” That became our troubleshooting mantra
Project R Team Apple Pie: How Cross-Functional Collaboration Turned a Simple Metaphor into a Breakthrough Initiative They made room for creativity, accountability, and even
