How Agility Gives Console Connect Customers The Best Result

In late March 2019, PCCW Global staff working on Console Connect product from all over the world came to Brisbane, Australia, to take part in Agile training for software development, learning and practicing methods to meet our customers’ needs as rapidly as possible while delivering a top quality product.

As the world shifts to services delivered online through self-service web applications (think AWS for business or Amazon.com for consumers), connectivity providers like Console Connect are under more pressure than ever to deliver connectivity in the same way – on demand, with minimum fuss or investment in infrastructure. And like every other industry, we want to achieve cost-saving innovation through the automation of business processes. This is where the world of Agile methodologies comes into play.

Rather than committing to a long development cycle to deliver a complete, complex product, and risk missing a change in our customers’ requirements, Console Connect needs to be adaptable and responsive to update our platform at speed.

Our developers are focussed on building value for customers piece-by-piece, by working in short cycles, in small teams networked together without silos, rather than in a top-down, prescriptive hierarchy. Self-organising teams are motivated to work together to deliver a common goal with the authority to take decisions and adapt to changing demands.
 

Over a working week in Brisbane, the Data and IoT Agile release train was launched with three days of training in the scaled agile framework (SAFe©) by Pretty Agile, followed by two days of intensive practice. The development teams planned out three months of collective effort in increments of two weeks – covering analysis, design, implementation and testing – while taking into account cross-team dependencies and the company’s overall business needs.

Paul Gampe is PCCW Global’s Chief Technology Officer and the executive driving force behind Console Connect. “Achieving Agility means keeping the end goal for customers at front of mind and focussing on the highest priorities,” commented Paul. “We intend to empower all teams, irrespective of function, with the tools and techniques of Agile to help drive our efficiency, and build a system that is a pleasure to use and geared towards our customers’ success.”

“With that, our Agile methodology is acting as a catalyst for cultural change to accelerate the pace of internal development across the company. Our investments in technology and people are enabling our customers and partners to achieve true business innovation, however the market and industry evolves.”