Say hello to the Continual Service Improvement team!
If you are reading this article you probably know what does Atea Global Services do and what are the services we provide, but what you might not know is how we improve what we offer and how we work to keep you coming back for more! Read ahead to find out!
They grow up so fast!
The Continual Service Improvement Team was born on the 12th of February in 2018 – just 4 months old they are the youngest (most recently established) team in AGS. But kids grow up so fast – in just 4 short months the CSI team has made improvements with the yearly savings value of 4,259.81 EUR and 53.25 hours and that’s just from 9 complete initiatives!
…we can’t wait when they reach their teenage years! 🙂
The story about stumps and carts!
The CSI team consists of two CSI Consultants and one Team Lead and it may not seem like much, but we have a saying in Latvian that a small stump can knock over a large cart, and that’s exactly what the CSI team is here to do!
The team’s main goals are:
- improve Services and Processes;
- save costs;
- automate manual tasks;
- make AGS employees and customers satisfied;
- make AGS services scalable;
- discover new tools and solutions;
- provide opportunities for AGS employees to be heard and help them to improve something.
Their key tool – the CSI Register! It stores all registered CSI initiatives together with all the information about them. Any AGS employee can register a CSI initiative that could help him/her, AGS, Atea One, or customers to save costs, be more satisfied with their work or the service they are receiving. The CSI process in total consists of 10 steps that are easy visible in the CSI Register as statuses for the CSI initiatives.
Who doesn’t love a good process!
Step No 1. – Submit a CSI initiative
A CSI initiative can be submitted by anyone in the organization, but it has to be related with improving the IT divisions services and/or processes + the person submitting the initiative has to have the patience to fill out a few fields.
Step No 2. – Investigate the CSI initiative
The CSI manager investigates the filled initiatives to make sure that they align with the AGS strategy and vision, that they are in the IT divisions scope and that there are no similar completed initiatives. Then it’s time to set a priority, time line and a CSI owner.
Step No 3. – Accept CSI initiative
The CSI manager approves or rejects the initiative and pam pam paaaam (please read this in a dramatic voice in your head) if he rejects the initiative, he is required to add a reason.
Step No 4. – Assessment time
Just how the title would suggest the CSI owner assesses the … well everything starting from the affected user count up to the expected results.
Step No 5. – Accept CSI assessment
After all that work the stakeholder would probably want to approve the request, but he can still decide to reject it, but please be so kind and provide reason.
Step No 6. – Plan the CSI initiative
CSI owner together with the responsible teams plan the implementation requirements, resources, expenses, time needed and all the other fun and necessary things to implement the initiative.
Step No 7. – Accept CSI plan
Another step another approval or rejection (with reasoning of course)
Step No 8. – Implement the CSI plan
The CSI owner should get pretty acquainted with the responsible teams as now the implementation and testing starts.
Step No 9. – Evaluate CSI result
Time for the big reveal – the CSI owner compares the results with what was expected.
Step No 10. – Complete CSI initiative
When all is well and done, the CSI manager completes the initiative notes the improvements and changes the status in the registry.
Oh, you may ask who are those magical people like the CSI manager, owner and stakeholder – well…
- CSI manager – the CSI manager is a person responsible for tracking and managing improvement initiatives to their logical resolution moments;
- CSI owner – a person responsible for assigned improvement investigation and development, including implementation;
- Stakeholders – Internal or External people, authorized to make decisions on improvements and environment chages.
Here they are!
Toms Knostenbergs
Here is what the CSI team lead has to say about himself:
After my mother submitted an initiative to my father I came to life. During the investigation I discovered that I am the first. Only two years later I had my brother. The CSI Manager at that time – the doctor – approved me as a healthy young boy and set my CSI owners to be my Mother and Father. Then I started with my assessments on:
- where I live,
- what I like,
- how things work,
- what are my stakeholders or in other words, who are the people around me who care about me,
- who are the affected user when I do some pranks.
Then came the time when I had to do the planning – in which high school I want to go, what technical skill I want to learn, create a business case and calculate return on investment or in other words how much money I will get when will finish the school and start working at AGS.
The actual plan implementation came fast, and I received Riga Technical University Electronics and Telecommunications Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and started working in Atea Global Services as application packager for 5 years and from 2018 February as CSI Team Lead.
In my free time I do mountain biking and participate in competition races in and play video games like pubg and rocket league. I am not ready to go in evolution phase yet.
Spoken like a true CSI patriot Toms!
Zanis Sakels
Zanis is one of the 2 CSI consultants and he is as old as Latvia’s independence, but when you try talking to him about that he can’t really remember much. What he can give you are a few memories from his time in kindergarten and school like braking the cameraman’s camera, his first words in English being “We wash my milk” (whatever that means) and doing a lot of mischief with his friends.
After studying as a computer system technician in Riga Technical College (this is where he gained his revelation that it’s easier to understand computer than humans) Zanis moved to Scotland where he was a full time student at Fife college, Technical support and even worked full time night shifts in a factory. But after 3.5 years Zanis decided to move back to Latvia (and we at AGS are happy of his choice 🙂 ).
This is what Zanis has to say about his experience in AGS:
I worked for SD agent for 11 months it was a really nice job, but it wasn’t for me, therefore I decided to change something, and applied for CSI consultant, where I am now for 6 months & I like it – this job fits me.
Zanis moto is
If you say it is not possible, I’ll do everything to show you that it is possible!
Overall he enjoys challenges and proving people wrong when they say something is not possible – great fit for a CSI consultant wouldn’t you agree. Other than that Zanis hobbies include meditation and everything about cars!
Zanis, we are happy that you came back from Scotland and now can prove people wrong when they say that something can’t be improved!
John Aage Andersen
It was 1961 – he’s alive! From the first moment when John felt life, he started upon the long and interesting road of continual service improvement! During the first 18 years, several services was improved – languages, mathematics, physics, biology, etc. as well as additional modules of electronics, wood work, metal work, model trains, radio amateur, computer technology (SYM-1) and so on.
In 1979 he joined the Navy and in the next couple of years he upgraded the electronics, languages, computer technologies (ZX81, BBC 128), radio amateur. Additional modules of communications, love of the sea, morse code, and love of bicycling was added.
Technology moves forward and so did John. In 1986 he switched track to IT and upgraded himself with all-round IT skills, as well as levelling up on languages, mathematics, organization management, and more.
Continued the improvement path with experiences in both DK and LV, participating in small and large IT projects. Additional language was added, Latvian. IT skills were improved with IT support, training, ITIL, IT technologies.
Today John does continual service improvement, with a smile 🙂