The msg life Slovakia team was the first to successfully implement a cloud solution for a customer

Author: Zuzana Kocáková

Company

06. 10. 2023 6 reading minutes

Moving from a standard deployment to a cloud solution is a hot topic for many large companies. These include one of the largest Swiss insurance companies, which has been a long-standing customer of msg life. However, since the beginning of 2023, there have been significant changes in personnel and technology in this project. For the first time the care of the client was taken over by the msg life Slovakia team headed by Michaela. During the summer, they successfully migrated from version 21.4 to 22.3 and were the first in our company to introduce the cloud to a customer.

“The project was in a stable phase, so the German management decided to leave much of its management and development to us. The employees of msg life Slovakia are usually assigned to German teams, but this time it is different. The German colleagues were replaced by Slovak colleagues at the beginning of 2023, with the German staff only having a support function,” says Michaela, the project leader about the personnel changes.

She didn’t get the management post by chance, as she knows this project very well since its beginnings: “I worked on the project fifteen years ago, where I started as a tester. I assisted with migration, testing and deployment of CorLife into production, from which the customer later transitioned to msg.Life Factory.” Michaela participated in other projects for the next few years, where she gained, among other things, managerial experience, which she is using in this project as well.

Agility as the key to progress

“After the transition from CorLife to msg.Life Factory the project has moved from a classical development and management approach to an agile one. I was initially sceptical about agile development management when I started to work again on the project. Now I see that, unlike the standard model, it helps the project dynamics a lot. This was also reflected in the staffing structure. Hierarchical differences have been removed and relationships have become more consolidated. Everyone in the team is equal, so everyone takes responsibility and actively contributes to the progress. This not only advances the project, but also every colleague in their career,” says Michaela.

Besides her, Product Owner Michal and Scrum Master Peter are also new to the project.. “Michal’s role is mainly communication with the customer, he needs to understand the requirements well, communicate them to the team and be informed about the product updates. Peter’s role is primarily to coordinate the team, ensure its efficient functioning, the satisfaction of colleagues and adherence to agile principles,” explains Michaela.

The entire team consists of approximately 14 members. “I often see how important developers and testers are. I especially appreciate their willingness and commitment to go above and beyond at times. It is great that we have colleagues in the team who can be relied on in a critical situation. In addition, we often have support from staff from other projects who also help us address the cloud migration challenges,” adds Michaela. The cloud is another significant change in the project.

Successful introduction of cloud

Although Michaela’s team is working in a stable project, one of the biggest challenges came already in the summer.. “Not only were we rolling out multiple changes at once, skipping several versions, we were also moving to the cloud. In the context of large insurance companies, the cloud is still in its infancy and most of the time, the clients themselves handle such a transition. So it was a total novelty in our company. We had to deal with various challenges such as proper system configurations, configuration of build images in the cloud or the temporary inability to fully test the system in our cloud,” adds Michaela.

And it seems that although the project has been full of challenges, it has already reaped its first successes. “Switching to version 22.3 has delivered a result beyond expectations. Despite the relatively short testing period and major changes, the new version with the cloud was deployed without major complications. We not only proved to the customer that we are a suitable partner, but also to our German colleagues that we can overcome the challenges this project brings,” she says. In addition to the chemistry and motivation of our colleagues, regular customer workshops with our team, which take place in Switzerland and Bratislava, also help to achieve this. Their topic is further mutual cooperation, testing efficiency, continuous delivery as well as improving the quality of the solutions offered.

“Moreover, this is a very unique customer. Not only have we known each other for many years, but they are also very helpful and cooperative. This also allows us to apply agile ways of development and management,” she adds. According to Michaela, the project is currently stabilized and its expansion is not planned yet. Following the recent successful implementation of customer requirements, further tasks are being progressed. Soon, the insurance company will be celebrating its round anniversary, which may also bring more interesting topics for our company.

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The msg life Slovakia team was the first to successfully implement a cloud solution for a customer

Zuzana Kocáková

At msg life Slovakia I take care of the company culture, events and I am part of the marketing team. I like a job where I can be creative and contribute to making my colleagues at msg feel good. I regularly prepare for you not only news and interesting things from the world of information technology and insurance, but also from behind the scenes events at msg life Slovakia.