In this educational article, we will explain agility, the concept of agility in the organization and the examples of the organization being agile.
Giants can dance
A significant revolution is taking place in the field of industry and organizations and large companies are aware of this issue and are trying to adapt their organization to it. While maintaining security and reliability, we seek to find a way to take advantage of this rapid change and transformation, or in other words, “agile”.
Agile is neither a new concept nor unique to the industry. For example, Lockheed Martin established its “skunkworks” teams in 1943 to create a completely new approach to aircraft development and construction. Engineers, technicians and pilots gathered in the California desert with a clear goal in mind. They designed and built the XP-80, the US Air Force’s first jet fighter, from scratch to flight in just 143 days. However, large organizations have largely lagged behind the ongoing high-speed revolution: sectors such as energy, chemicals, metals and mining are still in early trials, while many other industries are implementing operational models. They are modern. This lack of movement is not due to lack of ability. Organizations have the right to be cautious. For example, a programming error in a software company may increase costs or slow down progress, but considering the collapse of industries such as the oil industry or the collapse of mines Every cultured leader seeks to find a new idea to innovate and present new and deeper methods. However, time is the time for a fresh look. Today, rapid change and agility are no longer an unproven concept. If done correctly, changes can reduce risks and improve decision-making. Some large organizations have taken initial steps to further expand the changes in mines, oil fields, refineries and production lines.
Why agility?
Agility is a reminder of how things are done. It’s about working across functions, with less hierarchy, and focusing on real business problems. Agility is not tangible for all organizations. Efficient work practices are built on structure, rigor, and clarity that provide greater flexibility and faster decision-making. Agility can change a game’s productivity, quality, speed, and employee experience. The benefits of agility are not theoretical. Most big and famous organizations are naturally agile in times of crisis. Teams in such organizations display all five hallmarks of an agile organization:
- Clear and clear mission and goal or “North Star”
- A capable and responsible team
- A fast decision cycle, a time where every hour counts
- Supportive leadership
- A capable infrastructure in the form of crisis management rooms with all the necessary technologies.
But agility is not only useful in times of crisis. Many large organizations now understand the true value of agility in the ongoing transformation of their core business. Some organizations have only been able to devote themselves to these constant changes while many reputable organizations are making momentary progress. The effects of implementing changes include the following:
BP cut about $60 million from its procurement costs in Azerbaijan just by creating a team of people who were looking for ways to optimize costs. A similar team at a similar organization reduced the capital costs of a new investment-stage project by $1 billion. The company has now trained more than 3,000 employees in Scrum techniques.
A large oil and gas company transformed a discipline-based linear organization at an asset into a number of cross-functional agile teams, which resulted in a 40 percent reduction in maintenance costs.
A company active in the field of metal, by creating an agile team whose task was advanced analysis using digital technologies to increase productivity and performance, increased the quality and significantly reduced costs of the company.
The agile R&D team in a chemical company identified an improvement process that could increase the operating performance scale (EBITDA) of that organization by more than 300 million dollars.
Agile teams at Redesign Company automate 70-90% of HR processes and reduce costs in selected areas by 15-20%.
Beyond these, agile has great potential to improve employee experience. When the graduates of the best universities are employed in technology companies and start working, they are inspired by software technologies as well as new methods. By promoting hierarchy, faster learning cycles and full ownership of end products, agility can be a key to rekindling passion for traditional industries among the younger generation.
How and where to implement agile in operations?
Does agile apply everywhere? Not in the same form. Everyday agile teams and methodologies differ based on the nature of the activity. Companies may limit agile implementation to activities that are of greater value, for example based on increased speed, innovation, and customer focus.
Now we seek to understand the impact of agile on different parts of large organizations.
Digital organization
Many leaders of large organizations talk about agility first from their internal digital transformations. Digital and agile go hand-in-hand, and digital efforts that don’t embrace agile delivery models struggle to sustain themselves and grow later. Organizations often first implement agile quickly in specialized units, digital factories, garages, accelerators, incubators, studios, laboratories. In some organizations, these departments are the main departments, and in other organizations, these departments may be a small part of the organization. Significantly, they include business and IT teams (often called squads) that deliver their work using some scrum methodology. In almost all cases, the speed of delivery and the usability of the solutions are dramatically improved.
A typical European oil and gas company, for example, has fully utilized agile practices for its digital transformation. In mid-2018, after a successful project, the company upgraded this effort to a large Eureka program, which includes five business themes and can accommodate up to 180 full-time employees housed in an agile factory. call The task of these employees is to develop digital solutions and new ways of doing business. Its immediate effects on the rate of innovation are clearly visible:
The Agile Factory eliminates dashboards, optimization algorithms, changes in methods, and delivers actionable metrics to the CIO much faster than before. Currently, it is worth several hundred million dollars, and in the near future we can have some examples of real achievements.
Projects and improvement activities
Agile team members work together toward a common goal to solve problems to deliver products, projects, or activities that require creativity. As much as possible, these teams should have the necessary knowledge and skills to provide the desired results. We have seen this model successfully applied in various activities such as large projects, operational performance improvement (such as efficiency and power output, sand management and energy efficiency), asset planning and M&A (mergers and acquisitions). ) apply.
Examples from industries show that high-speed cross-platform agile teams with fast learning cycles can increase productivity by more than 40%. For example, in many drilling projects, petroleum engineers along with supply chain specialists and business specialists in a full-time team of an oil and gas company succeeded in reducing the time required to design new wells.
Working in cross-functional teams can also reduce the time required to develop and implement new ideas. A chemical company created innovative creative teams that achieved in weeks what was expected to take months. Currently, the same approach has been developed and engineers have identified solutions. This method increases the net present value of individual innovations. Finally, it may correctly identify the winners and losers of the heavy industry as they carry out the digitization process and develop climate neutral technologies. As successful as agile teams were in the chemical industry, they may play a similar role in other industries.
Commercial activities and technical support
Not every activity supports full-time teams, nor can a company dedicate unique expertise to just one of them.
The workflow of the organization (ticket to convert resources into incoming tasks) and it allows to assign all the different tasks to different teams based on the need.
These types of agile teams can increase efficiency, enable people to build broad skill sets, and ensure that work priorities are adequately addressed. Operational teams (such as human resources) or scarce resources (such as engineering subject matter experts) are often aggregated as resources.
One of the prototypes of the platform model is: Algorithms assign tasks to employees, as the Uber app does to drivers. A utility company has used this approach to inspect assets, where customers report power outages online and an algorithm automatically locates the nearest technician to the appropriate location, with appropriate instructions and details. Sends a call to the customer. How did the company develop and update this solution? The answer is with an agile functional team of technicians, software developers, and customer journey designers.
frontline
The benefits of agility are not limited to the office. We see productivity increases of up to 30% in both white and blue environments, through clear key performance indicators (KPIs) and through a rapid feedback cycle of fully transparent results and re-elimination. At the forefront, Agile complements Lean methods adopted by many large companies today. It can improve existing lean initiatives and expand them into new areas, including creative teamwork, which occupies a large share of the growing workforce as repetitive tasks are increasingly automated.
A mining company has used the frontline agile toolkit to create a group called “Anyone Can Be an Improver”. The design of this kit is inspired by the speed of action of agile teams. At the beginning of each four-week cycle, each chapter, the company introduces an acceleration plan in such a way that the team agrees to focus on 3 or 4 issues or improvements, including daily tasks. existing, such as the use of KPIs (key performance indicators), visual performance management, solving problems thoroughly and at the root using valuable flow mapping, kaizen events and the five why questions (where repetitive questions help Identify the cause of the problem. The use and application of the agile program allows the organization to identify and introduce lags at the end of each season, collect feedback and results, eliminate obstacles and identify better ways to work. This integrated approach resulted in 130 process improvements along with a significant increase in frontline engagement. In the last six months, the creativity and initiative of more than 90% of the line employees has improved.
Some companies are moving forward with their front-line operating model by involving a number of engineers from different disciplines in operations and maintenance to maximize uptime and productivity, whether for oil systems, crushing In mines, or equipment in chemical plants, they navigate next to their teams. However, the team includes members who volunteer to be on the front line in times of crisis even though they may not be skilled enough. They also have different KPIs. For example, the maintenance planning team has incentives for good planning, the maintenance technicians are ready to implement these plans and… With these interpretations, why not put all these employees in an equipment team and motivate them to increase production, reduce costs and eliminate safety incidents?
Overall
Is agile a fleeting method? no
The most successful agile experiments will not survive unless they benchmark their agile operating model against other models in the industry. It’s good to run pilots that create significant value. But creating a big and fundamental change requires a real transformation.
What is the agile performance model in large industries?
Agile teams, as described above, are defined by outcomes or missions rather than actions or input effects. All these actions form the basis. Then these groups are grouped together based on the common value stream of an activity. For example, an oil and gas company has created a support team to deliver the final product, and one of the tasks of this team is to optimize the final product.
But the concept of agile does not end only with these dynamic parts. To create harmony, order and governance, a strong and stable pillar is needed. Typically, the elements of this column include the main processes (for example: talent management, budgeting, planning, performance management, assurance and risk) human elements (such as core values and expectations of leadership behavior) and technology components (such as evolving architecture and IT engineering infrastructures).
The priority of humans is to take care of groups and team building, if they entrust their long-term development to separate competent lines. For example, agile organizations decide to introduce an idea that seeks to create order and discipline to establish and maintain healthy performance, monitor the development and progress of people, and pay attention to the ability given to them. This idea is very important in valuable industries as a way to maintain technical quality and risk management.
A metal refinery is looking to change its method from a traditional system to an agile organization. Instead of placing products, mechanical maintenance, electrical maintenance, planning for maintenance and repair, using all kinds of engineers in functional silos, they are for each part of the refinery, including grinding, refining and cleaning, reducing and … form teams to help plan more accurately and control costs.
Over time, these teams become the main home of these employees. For example, the active team in the stone crushing department of a mine may consist of plant production, mine production, maintenance, planning and repair chain employees, and each of these employees is responsible for responding in all fields, including They know the costs. These teams may not have a full-time leader, but one person from among them takes responsibility for managing all factors. Also, these people have other duties, including the development of people to share and implement the best method in the team and ensure the compliance of discipline and standards. These responsibilities put a lot of pressure on the shoulders of these managers.
But how does this idea work?
You need small teams. Typically between 5 and 10 people for self-management. These teams must have a specific mission and goal and responsibility for business outputs. The refinery team that we explained above consists of 10 people (4 people in the night shift and weekends) in each department. Each team is responsible for providing a product with a relative limit of quality to the customers, respecting the quantities, appropriate access and unit cost management. This coordination requires a senior leader to set the direction and build an elite culture. This system also requires middle management and frontline staff to be able to develop their business powerfully. Fully agile operating models emerge when companies combine a variety of teams and agile methods.
No views