, says Van Erp Taalman Kip. ‘You hear it everywhere: ‘We are agile’. Above all, it is a different way of working where you can switch faster, go to the left, go to the right, where you are a bit more flexible as an organization. You make a project manageable. In the past, a large project was thought up in one go and then that project had to be completed by the end of the year. And then there were a hundred thousand points that had to be done. They called it the waterfall methodology. But instead of a big ‘big bang’ delivery, you now divide a project into parts, making a sprint of about four or six weeks each time. These sub-projects are delivered one by one, so that you as a team can respond more quickly to changes and avoid risks.’ What is the difference between agile working and the traditional way of working? ‘In the past, projects were often postponed because they were too big and too complex. That’s when agile working emerged from IT. Instead of building a complete application, everything is cut up into small chunks. This makes it manageable and yields small pieces each time. Let’s say we want to build an internet site with 20,000 functionalities. We used to say: ‘That should be ready in a year’. But with so many functionalities, it becomes very complex and soon slows down. Agile works in small chunks. As soon as a kibble is delivered, it’s finished. Only then do you move on to the next thing, and that’s how the product grows slowly instead of a big big bang.’ How has the market affected this way of working? ‘As time goes by, a lot changes when you do big projects. We can start building something for our website now, but in a year’s time the market may be different. That’s why you always need to be able to adapt. If you work in small chunks, it’s easier to add something in between. That’s basically agile working. Agile working is increasingly being used in sectors other than IT. We introduced it five years ago for the customer service center and it was a success. Then came corona, which required a different approach. At the time, we were purely concerned with crisis management. We picked it up again at the beginning of 2023, we were also guided there for a certain period by an agile coach, Eveline Erkelens.’
What are the main principles of agile working? ‘Of course, there are more, but customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction are crucial. You can’t just be customer-focused, because if your employees aren’t satisfied, it radiates to the customer. That’s just not going to work. By the way, I call our way of working agile light. It should not become an end in itself, it should be a means.’
‘At Airtrade, I want more employee involvement. I’m not a manager who just looks down and says what needs to be done. No, I give everyone the freedom to do it themselves. Of course, there has to be a certain structure. It’s not long live the fun. Employee engagement is very important to me. Use the knowledge of the shop floor to work more efficiently. We’re in a low-margin industry. We have been able to maintain that by working more efficiently. We still do that every day. I’d rather let employees sit at the controls to become more efficient than come up with it myself or hire someone who just thinks of things all day long. People in the workplace often have good ideas. Putting responsibility deeper into the organisation, that’s the key.’ How do you respond to change? ‘You’re often working on something and then the situation changes again. Take Transavia, for example, which has introduced that passengers have to pay for hand baggage where they did not have to before. That has a big impact on us, because you can’t just change that. These kinds of changes happen all the time. It is a continuous development. With a traditional top-down model, that would be much more difficult, but with a self-organizing team, you can respond more flexibly to these kinds of changes.’ What are the focus points for the customer service center in agile working? ‘Greater employee satisfaction, job satisfaction, customer satisfaction and improved results on KPIs and SLAs.’ (KPI stands for key performance indicators, which can be used to measure the performance of the organization, the teams and the individual employees. They make progress measurable and concrete. This allows companies to see where they are doing well and where there is still work to be done. A Service Level Agreement (SLA), an agreement between a company and supplier, sets out agreements about what the customer can expect from the service and what efforts the service provider makes to meet this, ed.)
‘Agile is a means, not an end in itself’
According to Van Erp Taalman Kip, this is about working efficiently, improving the organization as a whole and getting a better balance between the inflow and outflow of employees. ‘We have brought in a lot of new people in the last year and a half and they are staying. They like it because of the way it works. We are not a customer service center that only looks at numbers. Of course we have goals, but we do it differently. It’s about a different way of working.’ What are the specific methods you use within agile working? ‘Scrum is a widely used method within agile working. It is especially popular in the IT world. You divide projects into short cycles, or sprints, and deliver small pieces of a system each time. We have been working here in the IT department for years with bi-weekly sprints. With each sprint, we deliver certain parts. For example, within the next two sprints, we will make sure that we can book passenger checked baggage. These are small chunks of work. After each sprint, we evaluate whether we are going in the right direction and make adjustments if necessary. Repeating this continuously is the essence of scrum.’ How do you apply this methodology to the customer service center? ‘We use scrumban, which is mainly used by companies or departments that do not work in IT, such as a customer service center or marketing department. A sprint usually lasts four to six weeks. We do it in six weeks. In addition, we have our daily operational tasks, such as answering phones and processing emails. We can’t just be busy coming up with changes. Our day-to-day business continues. That’s 90 percent of our work.’ What is the role of the scrum master and other team members? ‘The scrum master supports and facilitates the team, also cooperates and answers the phone. About fifty percent of the time, he facilitates the sprints, enthuses the team and chases ideas. He puts good ideas on the board and helps them become reality. The so-called product owner is more concerned with the content and the systems. If technical changes are required, he consults with IT. The manager of our customer service center focuses more on the people and less on the process.’ How do you organize the work and communication? ‘We have a core team consisting of Maurice Hurkmans (the product owner), Lisa Jonker (the customer service center manager, ed.) and me. We meet twice a month. Once every six weeks we have a sprint. We also have weekly stand-ups with the whole team. During these stand-ups, the scrum master explains what has been done and what the next steps are. We also have a structural meeting and a board with all the points we want to do in a sprint.’ How do you measure success and progress? ‘We measure employee and customer satisfaction, improvement in results on KPIs and SLAs (see above, ed.) and efficiency. It’s hard to measure efficiency precisely, but we’ve scored a lot of points and made progress over the past few years. We now do more with fewer people. Employee retention is also an important indicator. In this day and age, it’s hard to find people, but we did a good job.’ What are the most important lessons you have learned? ‘We have learned that employee engagement is crucial. By giving them more responsibility and involving them in decisions, they get more pleasure in their work. This radiates to the customer and improves the output. The team has gotten better, the engagement is greater, and the output is better. A sincere compliment: if someone does their best, someone can grow and perform even better. It is important to find a balance between structure and flexibility. Agile is a means, not an end
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