Benesse Corporation
Behind the Scenes of Benesse's Agile Development How did Benesse respond to the "drastic change" in the field of education?
Interviewee
Group Systems Engineering Department
Engineering Section 1
Kentaro Wada
Group Systems Engineering Department
Engineering Section 1
Yoshinori Umemura
Today’s business environment is highly uncertain and undergoing drastic changes. In order to respond to ever-changing circumstances, it has become essential for companies to create an organization that can move with agility. Achieving “business agility,” meaning business agility, is now essential for business growth.
One of the methods to realize quick decision-making that quickly meets market needs or flexible course correction is in-house production. In system development, the shift from outsourcing to in-house production is a major key to gaining agility. In turn, it can mean the difference between success and failure for a business, so it is important to gain speed through in-house production.
Benesse Corporation (Benesse), which provides a variety of services in the education and lifestyle fields, including the Shinkenzemi correspondence course, is one such company that is promoting organizational reform in line with the changing times. The field of education is changing on a daily basis, with the government’s GIGA school concept and the introduction of remote classes using the Corona disaster. What kind of reforms has Benesse promoted in order to respond to these developments?
Less than 10 people to cover all systems - Benesse sought an agile culture
Benesse began full-scale system in-house production and agile development in 2019. This was a year of major developments in the education field, including the announcement of the GIGA School Initiative by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Benesse’s Yoshinori Umemura (Engineering Section 1, Group Systems Engineering Department) recalls, “As the tide of DX promotion strengthened, there was growing momentum at Benesse to bring system development in-house and foster an agile culture.
“When I joined the company in 2019, we already had a huge amount of systems within the company, and less than 10 in-house development members were not enough to cover all of them. We thought it was essential to bring the systems in-house in order to respond quickly to customer requests and increase customer satisfaction.
By bringing in-house production to a more agile organization, we can work more closely with our sales and planning staff. At the same time, we will be able to respond more quickly to customer needs by shifting to agile development, which repeats from requirement definition to development, testing, and release in a short period of time,” said Umemura.
Insufficient human resources and knowledge! How to still make the project a success
However, building an ideal organizational structure generally takes time, as there are many things that need to be addressed, such as securing personnel and internal coordination. It was not realistic for Benesse employees alone to immediately proceed with in-house production and agile development,” continued Umemura.
We needed a partner who could accompany us through the process of internalization. That is when we approached TDC SOFT. We started working together when I asked TDC SOFT Inc. to help us with the agile development of “Miraiseed,” a learning service for elementary and junior high school students that I was in charge of. At the time, three members of TDC SOFT Inc. participated in the project,” said Umemura.
Agile development is being promoted in response to feedback from the education field.
Miraiseed is an all-in-one software for tablet learning for elementary and junior high schools that supports various learning situations, and is used by more than 3.34 million students (as of March 2024) in over 9,000 elementary and junior high schools nationwide. Benesse approached TDC SOFT Inc. with the aim of expanding its services to accommodate the GIGA School concept and other initiatives, but the Corona disaster changed all that.
As a result of the Corona disaster, more schools than anticipated are now using Miraiseed. The use of Miraiseed was so intense that logins were concentrated at the beginning of the school day in the morning, and multiple problems began to occur that interfered with normal use, including a deterioration in response time. Therefore, we first worked on modifying the system.” (Mr. Umemura)
Mr. Umemura recalls that he spent a year releasing a modified version of Miraiseed every week. Moreover, because students use the system during the daytime, the modification work could only be done from 10 pm to 6 am the following morning, after discussions with each local government.
We asked TDC SOFT Inc. to cooperate and work shifts to handle the work at night. We could not have overcome this crisis with just our in-house members. Around 2023, when the Corona disaster began to settle down, we started to improve performance and become agile at the same time,” said Umemura.
UI/UX improvements that we could not have realized on our own
UI/UX design, which determines usability, is also important. As a service for schools, the operation screen must be more intuitive and easy to understand. Kentaro Wada (Engineering Section 1, Group System Engineering Department), who is in charge of “Manavision,” Benesse’s career information site for high school students, says that TDC SOFT’s advice was helpful in terms of UI/UX design.
TDC SOFT Inc. understood our business requirements and gave us detailed advice based on the user’s impression of the site. TDC SOFT Inc. understood our business requirements and gave us detailed advice based on the user’s experience.
TDC SOFT Inc. provided us with detailed advice based on their understanding of our business requirements and how they envisioned users would use the system. We just recently released a new version of the software, and it has been well received by the students who use it,” said Wada.
To overcome difficulties - what means did Benesse choose?
Benesse worked with a partner company to revamp the system despite unexpected events caused by the rapid increase in the number of users. What factors should one look for in selecting a partner? Mr. Wada focuses on “the system’s antiquity and ability to handle large-scale work.
Manavision was a website established in the early 2000s, and there were many legacy parts of the site that we could not determine. It was a hurdle for the in-house team to revise the site alone, and we were unable to determine which parts of the entire site would be affected by changing a part of the source code.
We then consulted with TDC SOFT Inc. and had them analyze the source code. After sorting out the server load and advantages/disadvantages, they proposed a modification plan, and we were able to release a modified version with a modern framework. As a result of the prompt response, including the specialized parts, maintainability was also improved.” (Mr. Wada)
Mr. Umemura similarly emphasizes the importance of selecting a partner for companion support.
TDC SOFT Inc. has specialists called ‘meisters’ who specialize in technology. The precise advice of the Meisters, who are experts in code and security, was very helpful. In selecting a partner, it is very important that they offer perspectives and technologies that we do not have.” (Mr. Umemura)
TDC SOFT Inc. is currently responsible for Benesse’s business support, which is divided into two teams: the elementary and middle school business domain and the high school business domain. The entire system development division has expanded to involve approximately 50 TDC SOFT Inc. engineers. Even with the increase in the number of employees, the team was divided flexibly, and even the development of a new system, which was thought to be highly challenging, was ready in one month.
We should think about what internalization and agile are for.
It has been about four years since Benesse has been working on in-house production to increase business agility. What changes have taken place in the company’s system development? Mr. Umemura says, “The penetration of an agile culture has been welcomed within the company, and the understanding of upper management is spreading,” he says.
We need to build a more flexible system, but Miraiseed’s operations are stable, and I can see the agile development movement gaining momentum throughout the company. Most importantly, we have been able to continue releasing a revised version of the software every month, which has pleased the schools.
In March 2024, we announced an update to Miraiseed with a view to making it compatible with NEXT GIGA (*1). For this update, we asked TDC SOFT Inc. to participate from the requirements definition upstream from the basic design. we also focused on the UI/UX and made significant changes to the menu flow based on TDC SOFT’s advice” (Mr. Umemura)
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The renewal period of GIGA school terminals that many municipalities will face after FY2024 is described as “NEXT GIGA.
Benesse’s roadmap for in-house production is still ongoing. What are the key points to keep in mind when developing the system?
To bring in-house, it is important to know how the system and the team should work. If the goal is to develop the system in an agile manner, then agile development is not necessarily necessary. In any case, you will definitely need more manpower. I think it is important to build a relationship with a reliable partner from the early stage and create a stance to grow together.” (Mr. Umemura)
“It is important to have a fundamental idea and purpose as to why it is necessary to gain business agility and speed up improvement and release. Whether it is waterfall or agile, it should be a good idea to choose a development method that can satisfy the objective.” (Mr. Wada)
In-house production and business agility are only means to an end. Going back to the purpose of the business and selecting a reliable partner after choosing the means should be a shortcut to increasing the competitiveness of the business.
Reprinted from: ITmedia Business Online
ITmedia Business Online May 30, 2024
This article is published with permission from ITmedia Business Online
https://www.itmedia.co.jp/business/ articles/2405/30/news001.html
Technologies Used
agile
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