Published on the 20/06/2013 | Written by Newsdesk
Telstra, which runs the biggest IT shop in Australia, has achieved an 80 percent reduction in infrastructure rollout cycle time, using a 55 percent smaller team – all thanks to Agile…
Telstra has managed to slash the cycle time to roll out new infrastructure from an average 212 days to 42 days by implementing Agile techniques across its infrastructure deployment team. The organisation set itself an ambitious goal at the beginning of the one-year transformation programme to achieve “instant provisioning” of fit-for-purpose infrastructure. While seven weeks is hardly instant – it’s a huge improvement on what was previously possible at the telecommunications giant.
Speaking at Agile Australia 13 – the fifth in a series of annual conferences which explores Agile techniques and supporting technology – Anna Leibel, Telstra’s general manager for delivery said that the infrastructure team had developed a new operating model which had reduced the cycle time and cost to deliver infrastructure.
This is particularly impressive given Telstra has around 60 vendor partners it works with for the supply of infrastructure. It also has a delivery partner and two strategic partners. Leibel said, “We didn’t change the commercial relationships with our vendors, we only changed the way we work with them.”
By establishing small, nimble and self-organising work cells staffed by teams of 6-24 people, reducing infrastructure request documentation from 50 to one-page documents, and running extensive change management and training courses about Agile processes, the organisation has reduced cycle time by 80 percent, cut its infrastructure delivery team by 55 percent, reduced resource costs by 60 percent, and achieved an 80 percent engagement score with its user community.
The Agile Manifesto, now 11 years old, has been adopted by many Australian organisations including Suncorp, NAB, Telstra, BankWest and the REA Group as an alternative to traditional waterfall development methodology. Almost 900 people attended this year’s conference which has almost tripled in size since it was first launched, telegraphing the fact that Agile has now become a mainstream development approach, lauded for its ability to underpin rapid and cost effective IT development and deployment.
