LG Uplus Introduces ‘Agile Squads’ to Explore New Businesses

LG Uplus President Hwang Hyun-shik delivers his New Year’s video message to his executives and staffers on Jan. 3.

LG Uplus is introducing “agile project management” in earnest in the new businesses.

The move may be construed as a reflection of LG Uplus President Hwang Hyun-shik’s determination to secure an upper hand in new markets by speeding up efficiency of work process and decision-making.

IT business sources said LG Uplus’ latest reorganization upgraded 13 “agile squads,” operated temporarily in pilot projects as regular entities.

Tribes, a higher group of squads with a similar purpose, have been introduced as regular entities.

Agile squads are tearing down barriers of teams and departments. They act faster, execute, learn and frequently readjust the direction of businesses to exactly draw plans in advance.

Agile project management, which started at venture companies in Silicon Valley of the United States, has emerged as a key to the success of some companies, ranging from startups to global IT companies, including Microsoft and Amazon.

President Hwang intends to implement agile project management in LG Uplus’ work. The president wants to use ‘agile squads’ at all levels of teams in each business.

Such agile bodies are formed with members from diverse departments, and are disbanded after achieving their targets.

LG Uplus sees agile project management bodies as essential for exploring and nurturing new businesses.

An LG Uplus official said agile project management is suitable for new businesses in which extraordinary innovation could lead to securing of a competitive edge.

Chances are high agile project management could work into new businesses with greater uncertainties, the official added.

Agile squads have been formed at areas such as platform, over-the-top (OTT), extended reality (XR), new media, smart safety, smart trader, message hub, home workout program, GeForce NOW, home workout service, community, health care, and VOC (voice of the customer) analysis. Tribes have been formed at areas such as new media, game and digital platform.

Squads had yielded tangible outcomes for last year. “U+Message Hub,” an integrated message hub that made its debut of late, has been introduced by the Message Hub Squad.

LG Uplus has developed a service to send diverse messages such as SNS and App Push via one interface, reflecting the voice of companies that short-message service (SMS) and multi-messaging service (SMS) are not efficient means of sending information.

LG Uplus released the “U+Message Hub,” capable of managing letter messages, SNS and other diverse channels of messages at one time on Jan. 4. (Photos: LG Uplus)

With the upgrading of agile squads as regular entities, the scope of their responsibilities has been expanded from conventional authorities to verification of developments and quality inspections.

LG Uplus plans to work out a separate payment system for employees with agile squads and tribes. The telecom service provider plans to nurture manpower tailored to meet the needs of agile squads.

In his New Year’s message, President Hwang said it is necessary to settle down agile work processes to spearhead digital innovation.