Can a company with tens of thousands of employees be Agile: MTS experience
Director of the MTS Innovation Center, Vladimir Khrenkov, tells how to maintain flexibility at large sizes.
No, this is not about the perfect string for a heavyweight. We are talking about Agile - a technique that allows you to develop flexible software that would meet all the requirements of modern business. But the larger the company, the more it is considered sluggish. And the harder it is to adapt to new technical trends. However, recently Agile has ceased to be an attribute of extremely small IT offices and is becoming more and more popular with large players. Among them is Russia's largest mobile operator MTS. Vladimir Khrenkov will talk about the features of the transition to flexible technologies, and whether they can be trusted with the decision of projects of national importance.
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Agile is now widely known. Previously, a flexible development methodology was a feature of small IT companies. Today, Agile is gaining popularity with large companies such as MTS. 15 years ago, looking around the bright peaks of the global IT market from the mountains of Utah, 17 IT specialists developed Agile Manifesto.
I can imagine how much they would be surprised to see the news on the horizon somewhere that in 2016 Russia will host a conference on the topic “Flexible approaches to the management of state projects”. State projects, you understand ?! What was invented for developers and was actively used by IT start-ups is now being implemented at the level of governments. Why? What for? And most importantly, is it really possible to be flexible, if you are not a start-up and you have a team of more than ten employees — say, 7,000 times?
I have something to say about this, because I know how the flexible methodology works in MTS, with tens of thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of subscribers.
Flexibility check
Immediately make a reservation, the rapid introduction of innovations is the basis of our work, and it has always been so. We operate in a competitive market, where the rate of release of a new service is directly reflected in the level of income that it brings to us. We simply cannot, and never could, afford to agree over the years to create an application or collect tons of papers to update the tariff. But, you see, it is easy to say that you are releasing a minimum viable product, if your product initially has ten - well, or a hundred - clients. It is easy to talk about an individual approach and the speed of reaction to the wishes of customers, even when there are a thousand. But when you have more than 100 million subscribers, they are hardly ready for the fact that you offer them something “minimally viable”, and you are hardly ready to quickly respond to all their wishes for improving the product.
That is why it was immediately obvious to us that the very implementation of the Agile approach will require special flexibility from us, that our path in this direction will differ from the path of startups.
Why change when everything “flies”
Let's see to begin with, why do we need it at all. In the telecom services market in Russia, MTS is the leader. Innovation and the ability to quickly respond to changes in the external environment and customer requests is the basis of our existence. But we have long been not only a telecommunications operator. In particular, MTS is successfully developing on the IT market, we have more than 20 of our own mobile applications, we offer cloud services, IoT solutions. This market dictates an even higher rate of adaptation to change. Therefore, we realized that in order to implement projects that require new competencies from employees and a new level of flexibility, we need a new format of interaction within the company, and implemented it on the basis of our own innovation center.
Immediately, I note that this is not an R & D center, we are engaged not only in the development and search for new niches, but also in the implementation of projects and the further development of products. Within the framework of the center, classic Agile teams are created for each direction: all employees involved in the project work in the same room, saving the time they would have spent on endless correspondences and meetings; they are involved in the development of only one product or direction; their efforts are aimed at solving specific primary tasks, and not at drawing up far-reaching plans.
It turns out so many startups under the wing of the market leader. At the same time, Agile teams do not spend time trying to invent a “spherical horse in a vacuum,” they make the same minimum viable product, listen to customers and refine the product based on their wishes.
Time is money
A high launch rate of products is ensured not only by simplifying the interaction within the team, but also by creating a special format for coordinating team decisions. For example, we can approve the financing of a project at the level of the MTS President in just an hour. For a company with tens of thousands of employees and shareholders around the world, this is, without exaggeration, a stunning result. How do we achieve this?
First, the simplicity of coordinating financing is provided by an iterative approach - we are not talking about allocating a huge budget for five years in advance; we always consider a specific task for the near future and the amount of resources needed to solve this task. Secondly, the speed of allocation of funding has decreased dramatically due to the creation of a special format for coordination. Thus, for each project of the innovation center, a supervising vice president is appointed. And our agreement goes a short way - only the supervising vice president and president of MTS participates in it.
As you can see, there are no unnecessary, intermediate links in this chain. I repeat, the whole process of allocating finances as a result fits into the hour. You may think that this concerns only minor improvements of existing services or product launches for very limited audiences, but this is not so: the first Agile-teams of MTS are working on large-scale projects on which the company relies, on the development of cloud services and eHealth (e-medicine).
Underwater rocks
Now about the most interesting - about the pitfalls that can be encountered on the path of implementing a flexible methodology in a large company.
The first obstacle may be the mentality of people. Not every employee is ready to quickly adapt to the new format of work: complexity can be a new level of responsibility, and the need to work on only one project, and the understanding that a product released into the world is not a beautiful final point of a project, but only the beginning of work on it . For us, such difficulties cannot be called critical, since the markets in which MTS operates have always demanded the willingness of employees to change, and most of the specialists turned out to be open and capable of switching to a new format of work. But for some large companies, this problem may become a serious deterrent.
The second feature that I have already mentioned is that we cannot afford to produce a “minimally viable” product, offering it to tens of millions of customers at once. It is unlikely that our subscribers are ready to change with us - they still want, and absolutely rightly, immediately (and preferably first) to receive the highest quality product. And here we come to the rescue of the very tens of thousands of employees, our subsidiaries, our loyal partners who are ready to become the first users of innovative MTS products. Receiving feedback from them, we are refining services, adjusting services to the real needs of customers. This is the resource that no one startup has.
How it works
Now we are testing a new cloud solution, and initially the concept of the product meant storing data in one data center. But the first client noted that in order to ensure the required level of service reliability, he considers reservation in the second data center located in another city to be important. We quickly corrected the very concept of the product, and now this is the basic condition for providing the service. We have a well-developed own infrastructure (in this case, our own data centers in seven cities of Russia), and this allows us to quickly adapt to such wishes.
Moreover, if the tests show a negative reaction to the product, then we close the project. We do not spend money and energy on endlessly modifying something that clearly does not become viable - not according to our feelings, but according to customers. The ability to hear customers and quickly respond to their wishes is the basis of Agile in our understanding.
What results do we expect? What goals do we set for ourselves? We plan to reach the speed of IT startups - when the idea that arose in the morning is implemented into a working solution in the evening of the same day, and large new products go from idea to launch within 3-4 months. We also want our customers to win in terms of the quality of the products they offer, because we are ready to more quickly and more subtly adjust services based on feedback. In general, in 2017, MTS, through the innovation center, plans to launch about ten large digital products in four new business areas for MTS.
The main thing - do not miss the main
Instead of the conclusion, I would like to note the following: I see the key to the success of the introduction of any new methodology in that, in its application, not to devalue the advantages already existing in the company, but to make them work for your new tasks in a new format. We took the best specialists on the market (after all, most of them are already with us), took the opportunity to test the service from teams of employees (of which there are so many that target groups can be assembled for any service) and a loyal base (which was formed over decades). I am sure that you will have your own advantages that can become the foundation for building any system, for implementing any methodology, whether it is fashionable today Agile or what you personally think is more effective.
Source: www.banki.ru
No, this is not about the perfect string for a heavyweight. We are talking about Agile - a technique that allows you to develop flexible software that would meet all the requirements of modern business. But the larger the company, the more it is considered sluggish. And the harder it is to adapt to new technical trends. However, recently Agile has ceased to be an attribute of extremely small IT offices and is becoming more and more popular with large players. Among them is Russia's largest mobile operator MTS. Vladimir Khrenkov will talk about the features of the transition to flexible technologies, and whether they can be trusted with the decision of projects of national importance.
')
Agile is now widely known. Previously, a flexible development methodology was a feature of small IT companies. Today, Agile is gaining popularity with large companies such as MTS. 15 years ago, looking around the bright peaks of the global IT market from the mountains of Utah, 17 IT specialists developed Agile Manifesto.
I can imagine how much they would be surprised to see the news on the horizon somewhere that in 2016 Russia will host a conference on the topic “Flexible approaches to the management of state projects”. State projects, you understand ?! What was invented for developers and was actively used by IT start-ups is now being implemented at the level of governments. Why? What for? And most importantly, is it really possible to be flexible, if you are not a start-up and you have a team of more than ten employees — say, 7,000 times?
I have something to say about this, because I know how the flexible methodology works in MTS, with tens of thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of subscribers.
Flexibility check
Immediately make a reservation, the rapid introduction of innovations is the basis of our work, and it has always been so. We operate in a competitive market, where the rate of release of a new service is directly reflected in the level of income that it brings to us. We simply cannot, and never could, afford to agree over the years to create an application or collect tons of papers to update the tariff. But, you see, it is easy to say that you are releasing a minimum viable product, if your product initially has ten - well, or a hundred - clients. It is easy to talk about an individual approach and the speed of reaction to the wishes of customers, even when there are a thousand. But when you have more than 100 million subscribers, they are hardly ready for the fact that you offer them something “minimally viable”, and you are hardly ready to quickly respond to all their wishes for improving the product.
That is why it was immediately obvious to us that the very implementation of the Agile approach will require special flexibility from us, that our path in this direction will differ from the path of startups.
Why change when everything “flies”
Let's see to begin with, why do we need it at all. In the telecom services market in Russia, MTS is the leader. Innovation and the ability to quickly respond to changes in the external environment and customer requests is the basis of our existence. But we have long been not only a telecommunications operator. In particular, MTS is successfully developing on the IT market, we have more than 20 of our own mobile applications, we offer cloud services, IoT solutions. This market dictates an even higher rate of adaptation to change. Therefore, we realized that in order to implement projects that require new competencies from employees and a new level of flexibility, we need a new format of interaction within the company, and implemented it on the basis of our own innovation center.
Immediately, I note that this is not an R & D center, we are engaged not only in the development and search for new niches, but also in the implementation of projects and the further development of products. Within the framework of the center, classic Agile teams are created for each direction: all employees involved in the project work in the same room, saving the time they would have spent on endless correspondences and meetings; they are involved in the development of only one product or direction; their efforts are aimed at solving specific primary tasks, and not at drawing up far-reaching plans.
It turns out so many startups under the wing of the market leader. At the same time, Agile teams do not spend time trying to invent a “spherical horse in a vacuum,” they make the same minimum viable product, listen to customers and refine the product based on their wishes.
Time is money
A high launch rate of products is ensured not only by simplifying the interaction within the team, but also by creating a special format for coordinating team decisions. For example, we can approve the financing of a project at the level of the MTS President in just an hour. For a company with tens of thousands of employees and shareholders around the world, this is, without exaggeration, a stunning result. How do we achieve this?
First, the simplicity of coordinating financing is provided by an iterative approach - we are not talking about allocating a huge budget for five years in advance; we always consider a specific task for the near future and the amount of resources needed to solve this task. Secondly, the speed of allocation of funding has decreased dramatically due to the creation of a special format for coordination. Thus, for each project of the innovation center, a supervising vice president is appointed. And our agreement goes a short way - only the supervising vice president and president of MTS participates in it.
As you can see, there are no unnecessary, intermediate links in this chain. I repeat, the whole process of allocating finances as a result fits into the hour. You may think that this concerns only minor improvements of existing services or product launches for very limited audiences, but this is not so: the first Agile-teams of MTS are working on large-scale projects on which the company relies, on the development of cloud services and eHealth (e-medicine).
Underwater rocks
Now about the most interesting - about the pitfalls that can be encountered on the path of implementing a flexible methodology in a large company.
The first obstacle may be the mentality of people. Not every employee is ready to quickly adapt to the new format of work: complexity can be a new level of responsibility, and the need to work on only one project, and the understanding that a product released into the world is not a beautiful final point of a project, but only the beginning of work on it . For us, such difficulties cannot be called critical, since the markets in which MTS operates have always demanded the willingness of employees to change, and most of the specialists turned out to be open and capable of switching to a new format of work. But for some large companies, this problem may become a serious deterrent.
The second feature that I have already mentioned is that we cannot afford to produce a “minimally viable” product, offering it to tens of millions of customers at once. It is unlikely that our subscribers are ready to change with us - they still want, and absolutely rightly, immediately (and preferably first) to receive the highest quality product. And here we come to the rescue of the very tens of thousands of employees, our subsidiaries, our loyal partners who are ready to become the first users of innovative MTS products. Receiving feedback from them, we are refining services, adjusting services to the real needs of customers. This is the resource that no one startup has.
How it works
Now we are testing a new cloud solution, and initially the concept of the product meant storing data in one data center. But the first client noted that in order to ensure the required level of service reliability, he considers reservation in the second data center located in another city to be important. We quickly corrected the very concept of the product, and now this is the basic condition for providing the service. We have a well-developed own infrastructure (in this case, our own data centers in seven cities of Russia), and this allows us to quickly adapt to such wishes.
Moreover, if the tests show a negative reaction to the product, then we close the project. We do not spend money and energy on endlessly modifying something that clearly does not become viable - not according to our feelings, but according to customers. The ability to hear customers and quickly respond to their wishes is the basis of Agile in our understanding.
What results do we expect? What goals do we set for ourselves? We plan to reach the speed of IT startups - when the idea that arose in the morning is implemented into a working solution in the evening of the same day, and large new products go from idea to launch within 3-4 months. We also want our customers to win in terms of the quality of the products they offer, because we are ready to more quickly and more subtly adjust services based on feedback. In general, in 2017, MTS, through the innovation center, plans to launch about ten large digital products in four new business areas for MTS.
The main thing - do not miss the main
Instead of the conclusion, I would like to note the following: I see the key to the success of the introduction of any new methodology in that, in its application, not to devalue the advantages already existing in the company, but to make them work for your new tasks in a new format. We took the best specialists on the market (after all, most of them are already with us), took the opportunity to test the service from teams of employees (of which there are so many that target groups can be assembled for any service) and a loyal base (which was formed over decades). I am sure that you will have your own advantages that can become the foundation for building any system, for implementing any methodology, whether it is fashionable today Agile or what you personally think is more effective.
Source: www.banki.ru
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/318338/
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