By Alyssa Joi Gomez, Kimberlyn Desepeda, and Gabriel Bucu
Agile is not just a methodology. It is a state of mind that empowers teams to consistently deliver value in an ever-changing landscape. By embracing Agile principles such as flexibility, collaboration, and iterative improvement, organizations can respond faster to market demands, enhance customer satisfaction, and foster a culture of continuous innovation.
AP Renewables Inc. (APRI), a subsidiary of AboitizPower that operates its geothermal facilities, has embraced Agile as the cornerstone of its project management approach. Agile empowers employees to adapt swiftly to continuous improvement and collaborate effectively across teams, enhancing risk management and improving stakeholder engagement. By doing so, it can deliver techno-ecological advancements and operational efficiencies that can significantly impact project profitability and environmental outcomes.
2024 Agile Squad PechaKucha Showcase
Last July 5, APRI represented the AboitizPower group at the 2024 Agile Squad PechaKucha Showcase, exhibiting its top two Agile projects– the Barangay Kamustahan and the Overhauling Reduction Days– which bagged special awards in the following categories:
Jarren De Guzman: OH Days Reduction
Wow Presenter Award: 1st Place
Wow Visual Presentation: 1st Place
Wow Project: 1st Place
Joyce Binalla: Barangay Kamustahan
Wow Presenter Award: 3rd Place
Wow Visual Presentation: 2nd Place
Overhauling (OH) Days Revisited
APRI’s geothermal power plants have been running for more than four decades. Over the years, APRI has consistently optimized and ensured peak efficiency for every piece of machinery. That being said, preventive maintenance, specifically overhauling activities, is given high importance. However, this costs the company hundreds of millions of pesos, especially when performance is being extended from a standard 28-day duration to a 46-day extension due to constraints such as a lack of skilled manpower and supply of critical spare parts.
To resolve this, the Operations and Maintenance teams applied the Agile discipline to create a solution that will hit or even decrease its 28-day standard lead time when performing overhauling activities.
Supported by Product Owners, Fernando Bautista and Rommel Austria from the Central Maintenance Services (CMS) Department, Developer, Engr. Jarren de Guzman presented their innovation project during the event.
Barangay Kamustahan
APRI operates in two provinces in Luzon– Albay and Batangas, hosting a total of 30 communities. Managing the expectations of the community might seem difficult and overwhelming, but APRI inevitably works to address community concerns as part of its commitment to advancing businesses and communities.
APRI applies the Agile discipline to enhance its community engagement approaches. Through Barangay Kamustahan, the turn-around time in addressing grievance concerns has improved, with more employees across different APRI departments becoming more involved in conducting IEC campaigns. Most importantly, the project has also enhanced APRI’s overall reputation with its host communities.
The continued execution of this project is overseen by the Reputation Manager Wendy Bautista. Joyce Binalla, the Product Owner of Brgy. Kumustahan, shared their journey during the Agile showcase.
The Adoption of Agile Scrum Methodology
APRI’s top management and team members fully welcomed and recognized the Agile Scrum approach, incorporating it in many of the company’s projects, including the Project OH Days Reduction and Barangay Kamustahan.
For the OH Days Reduction initiative, over Years 1 to 3, identified product backlogs have delivered significant results and impacts to APRI, notably advancing overhauling timelines and generating cumulative savings of Php40.4 million over the past three years.
On the other hand, Barangay Kumustahan focused on addressing product backlogs related to plant operations, safety measures and controls, security, compliance, social development projects, and other critical updates such as job announcements, resulting in the resolution of 100% of issues in CSR, operations, environment, compliance, and other areas.
Joyce Binalla shared her realization during the Pecha Kucha showcase: “Who would have thought that the concept of Agile could be useful in making a CSR initiative, such as Barangay Kamustahan, more effective, responsive, and aligned to the needs of the communities we serve?”
“Incorporating the Agile concept and methodology in Barangay Kumustahan was a bit challenging at first, especially with the daily scrums. We needed to provide updates regularly and implement product backlogs in each sprint swiftly, while considering the availability of TMs. But as we continued to adapt the Agile ways of working, we realized that it allowed the team to collaborate and communicate with each other more often, as well as improve our flexibility, enabling us to complete the implementation ahead of our timeline. The sprint reviews allowed us to continuously enhance our implementation of Barangay Kumustahan and of course, celebrate our wins.
Additionally, Jarren De Guzman said, “As we ended the Year 3 installment of our Agile Projects, the group was recognized by APRI as the Most Valuable, Outstanding, and Proactive Agile Team. Some might say we could be content with these accomplishments, but for us, this is just another step closer to our mission.”
APRI’s Business Process and Change Manager, Gabb Bucu, emphasized that APRI continues to embrace Agile in embedding it to their projects and ways of working. Their department commits to provide new initiatives to ensure sustainability of the program.
This milestone was made possible with the support of the President and COO of APRI, Jeffrey Estrella. Moreover, the combined leadership of Ma. Loida A. Padulip (Assistant Vice President for Risk, Strategy, and Business Process) and the project sponsors, Ireneo Iteoses (Senior Vice President for Operations), and Leonardo Robel Jr. (Vice President for Corporate Services) pushed forward APRI’s Innovation – Agile program to the next level of maturity.
