For me, agile work means responding to the rapidly changing requirements in e-commerce in our IT systems, in a continuous, professional and customer-orientated way.
Agile working
The Internet has changed not only our communication, but also how we work together. We have become used to planning projects dynamically, receiving continuous feedback and following processes in great detail. Especially in software development, the focus is on agile working in interdisciplinary teams with the most up-to-date web technologies.
One example of this is Project Lhotse in the Group company OTTO. This stands for the development of innovative and individual software for the otto.de online shop. Once a large go-live has been successfully achieved, the employees swap notes in Barcamps, in Design-Thinking Workshops and Innovation Contests, with the objective of continuously developing the product they created.
Mixed teams
Working in mixed teams means that experts from the specialist Areas of IT, Business Intelligence and E-Commerce, as well as from Strategy, HR and Communication, work in various constellations together on one project. This leads to demonstrably better results in the work and also supports the personal development of every individual. A real win-win situation!
Group-wide Boot Camps
Knowledge transfer at its best! In Boot Camps, the Otto Group supports employees in the Group-wide exchange of knowledge and in their creativity. The best example is the ‘#datathon’ organised by the Business Intelligence Division in January 2015, in which 65 participants from 13 Otto Group companies took part. They worked together for three days in small working parties on current issues from around the BI business area.
Worldwide networking via the Group intranet
In the Otto Group, not only does every Group company have its own intranet, but the Group itself also has an overarching platform: ottogroupnet, where employees from all Group companies worldwide can link together. They exchange information, share their knowledge in special working groups, work on joint projects and debate current topics in the forums. All of it fast, uncomplicated and effective!
International exchange through competitions
The Otto Group not only promotes networking internally – also when it comes to solving complex IT issues we are opening ourselves up increasingly to international expert communities. One example of this is launching competitions on Kaggle, the world’s largest Internet platform for data-science competitions, as well as on GitHub.