ALP Group Service Management System

2020: Profound support of remote work. Possibility of weekly "cut"

On June 30, 2020 the ALP Group company announced expansion of opportunities of a corporate system of management Service Management System and profound support by the System of remote work of employees. This system showed the working capacity and provided the necessary level of project implementation in the conditions of quarantine restrictions.

ALP Group Service Management System Релиз

According to the company, for June, 2020 a System is a basis of project activity of ALP Group and is used for planning and management of all project lifecycle – from problem definition before testing and deployment of releases on the platform of the customer and their further support. A key feature of a System is the possibility of its use not only the staff of ALP Group, but also to users: on start of the project own installation of a System is provided to users; thereby, the user receives the tool for direct communication with the contractor – problem definitions, consecutive implementation and tracking of the planned and actual course of accomplishment of stages of the project.

Work in the remote mode to which for June, 2020 switched over most domestic enterprises, demanded operational additional tuning of a System. But as all basic functions of remote control by project teams and interactions with users already in it were implemented, implementation of these changes was not integrated to need of deep reorganization of the settled processes. So, considering reduction of opportunities of direct communication of participants of the working groups and heads, for support of adequate level of management of adoption of addresses and control of the course of their accomplishment the decision on transition to shorter planning horizon and big frequency of the reporting was made. In particular, weekly "cut" was entered that gave the chance to heads quicker to accept results of the carried-out tasks to check, using at the same time accurate instruments of week planning. It allowed to support, on the one hand, with consultants and developers regular communication (with a possibility of correction of their actions almost also quickly, as well as at a normal operation mode), and with another – to level specific features of employees during their work out of office, to timely give them necessary support and not to lose feeling of work in collective. All this provided to ALP Group smooth passing of this period, without adjusting release schedules and deployment of releases.

ALP Group Service Management System Plan diagram

The first version "Service Management System" (SMS) was created in ALP Group as the main instrument of work with customer appeals 10 years ago. As basic the 1C Platform Document flow was used. For June, 2020 the SMS represents the single licensed full-function end-to-end system of project management, resources, tasks and workflows in scales of the company. A system allows to maintain balance of the resources involved in each of projects and to control online the course of their accomplishment, including – number of iterations when implementing each task. In addition to increase in transparency and controllability on micro and macrolevels, it gives the chance to try to obtain bigger predictability in professional development of employees and is base for the long-term corporate ALP Group programs (including the strategy of development of lean production, the Great Employer program, etc.).

For June, 2020 users of the corporate platform "Service Management System" is all staff of ALP Group. So, company executives using the SMS control the general organization of a project work, efficiency of these or those structural divisions in general and also have an opportunity to keep track of quality of management according to specific projects at the level of the accuracy of task allocation and timeliness of their receiving by developers, a feedback from customers, etc. In turn, project managers use a system for receiving the entering tasks from the customer, control of the course and results of their execution, resource allocation in the project. At this level a system provides observance of all regulations admitted to the companies: all tasks are surely fixed in a system as separate processes and are accepted in work on the established procedure (any address of the customer should be supported with the technical specifications, the plan of implementation and so forth) and the reporting on results of its accomplishment. Moreover, a System provides observance of planned parameters, including, compliance of the spent resources to the standards admitted to the companies. These standards are one of key performance indicators by which are guided both project managers, and developers and specialists in deployment (DevOps).

Along with basic functions of project management (project planning, time supervision, resources and the course of accomplishment on each task, etc.), Sistem is used for administration of a number of corporate processes – internal document flow (for example, applications for a holiday, preparation of scheduled plans of works and their approvals, including of the customer). At the same time "Sistem management service" is integrated with other subsystems of ALP Group and is a basis for work of the internal analytical platform "BI Monitor" allowing resource managers, curators and project managers to predict and balance necessary budgets and resources under each of projects in scales of all ALP Group. In fact, BI Monitor represents a single window where data from other systems are flown down and are visualized for fast decision making. A financial and analytical system, a management subsystem personnel and some other is also introduced into a complex of the automated ALP Group management tools.

Considering importance of the SMS for activity of the company, all staff of ALP Group undergoes the compulsory education to work with a system considering job responsibilities of the employee. The deepest immersion in a system capability is required first of all to analysts and system architects; training of consultants and developers takes several hours.

In plans of further development of "Service Management System" – creation of mobile application for access to all systems capabilities and further development of a subsystem of planning which will include support of creation and preserving of several alternative working schedules and resource models under everyone the project or a task.