In this chapter, We have a chance to sit down and talk with a determined Agile team leader, Pattaravadee Leekulpitak, VP Head of Postpaid -inLife Unit, dtac.
Khun Ploy explained that her team, “Postpaid-inlife”, has a total of 4 members. She herself has to be in charge of both her full-time job and agile team. Khun ploy and her teammates start their days with Stand-up meeting, a daily 15-minute meeting which allow them to know what task each member is holding. Stand-up meeting let them know which tasks can be finished first and has to be prioritized.
“Before Agile, our team members used to work separately so all of us did not understand the whole picture of the project, hence we prioritize tasks unequally. Luckily after agile, everyone in our team gradually generated the unified goal.” Claimed Khun Ploy.
Consequently, the amount of time we used to wait for each feedback has been gradually decreased. Way back when, we attended the meeting twice a month but after agile, we work together every day and we get to discuss and develop project together . Easily-speaking, the once complicated processes has been shorten and become more convenient.
Pattaravadee Leekulpitak, VP Head of Postpaid in-Life Unit, dtac
It needs some time to adjust to Agile
Khun Ploy used to question why agile way of work requires people to meet and discuss every day and wondered if that is really important . Soon afterwards, She realized that agile actually fixed the longstanding problem because it encourages team members to continuously follow every step of processes. Agile allows team members to keep checking on each other and see what they can do to help their teammates .
Agile gives importance to every single parts of the project and encourages people to constantly give feedback toward team members. These feedbacks will reflect how they truly feel toward each task. Compared to the traditional way of work which people used to blame each other, agile allows people to declare their opinions in a positive way which tremendously increase work efficiency.
Prior to agile, after each meeting was done, our teammates worked in separate ways. This result in the misunderstanding of the project and how we delivered them. The problems stemmed from the weak connection toward team members.
Agile gradually tightened the relationship in Khun Ploy’s team which resulted in a better performance. When team members are close, the work flow is in sync and they all work together for same purpose.
Postpaid-inlife team
Agile is not a villain. It will not waste your time.
Khun ploy stated that agile does not intervene her full-time job and does not turn out to be her burden. Interestingly enough, agile has improved the way of work for her full-time job.
The only problem she found for agile working way is that it is quite complicated when her team has to work with non-agile teams. This type of collaboration happens a lot because they share the same resource. The one way to fix the problem is to do our best as usual and continually sync the information with non-agile team.
When we work together for a project, we constantly communicate with others. if something does not go well, we will discuss and try to fix it together.
Postpaid customers’ understanding toward package
Most problems postpaid customers have faced are their lack of understanding toward their network usage. They cannot decide the suitable amount of calling minute and internet package which match their usage.
They do not understand that their expensive network bill comes from the add-on service so they lower their package in case it will cut their cost.
In order to provide a suitable package for customers, Postpaid and CVM team are developing model of package personalization based on our postpaid customers’ data. We can personalize packages for 70% of our customers.
Currently, customers decrease their mobile usage but increase their usage in data so Postpaid teams collaborate with CVM team to create more contents to correspond to this change such as Freefire game.
We have approximately 6 million postpaid customers and most of them are adults who prefer convenience and privileges.
Agile gives a satisfying result compared to the traditional way of work. For one project, we used to need 5 days to accomplish it but with agile, we can actually finish it within one day.
For people who are yet to be familiar with agile, Khun Ploy want to assure that there is nothing to be afraid of. Before agile, her teams used to work separately and do not care much about others. Everyone prioritized their job first without caring much of their teammates but after agile, the work flow are unified. Team members become more sympathized toward others and helping team members more.
Agile gets us all out of comfort zone. It proves not to be a burden but indeed a great helper that makes everyone’s work life easier and more convenient.