Kevin Lowell’s appointment as UScellular’s Chief People Officer puts IT in the limelight

It wasn’t long ago that nearly all communications service providers (CSPs) viewed IT as a cost center rather than as central to business strategy. But as they transition from telcos to techcos, companies like UScellular are realizing how critical IT operations are to delivering what customers want, when they want it and how they want it.

Lowell says his promotion “reflects the importance of technologists understanding the business and the business understanding technology… In the mission to achieve business results, one group can’t do what they do without the other.” And he notes that moving IT skills into HR was deliberate, calling the decision “unconventional, but 100% intentional.”

It’s not a Big Bang transformation

Like most mobile operators that are not greenfield startups, UScellular is undergoing transformation. However, Lowell is quick to point out that the company is not undertaking a big, overarching digital transformation program.

“I’m not a believer in those transformation efforts because I think they are so nebulous,” he explains. “…It’s a trendy, kind of catch-all term that sounds like something you ought to do. But when you get specific, nobody can agree on what it means.”

Change within UScellular’s IT organization is happening, however, and it began about five years ago when the company started embracing Agile and DevOps practices in order to respond more quickly to the needs of the business. The idea has been to transition from IT serving as an “order-taker” to it becoming a true enabler.

The transformation is occurring in three steps:

1. Earn credibility by delivering on what the business wants – the IT team did this by delivering not on what it thought was important, but on what the business identified as priorities.
2. Become a partner with the business rather than an order-taker – Here, IT applied Agile concepts by sitting down with business stakeholders early on during the service development process and ideating with them, asking lots of questions about customers’ preferences, for example.
3. Become a proactive enabler of the business, with a focus on improving customer experience – As IT staff members gain the trust of business stakeholders, they can proactively suggest new services or improvements to existing ones. “You can really go on the offensive with IT instead of just sitting back, taking orders and hoping for the best,” Lowell explains.

Culture eats technology

During the shift to a new way of working, cultural change has been the most difficult obstacle to overcome, significantly harder than technological change, according to Lowell. He explains that the shift started with creating “a compelling why” – in this case improving how customers experience using UScellular services.

The company’s IT organization replaced some waterfall processes with iterative Agile processes managed in scrums and implemented in sprints. The team also began meeting with business stakeholders regularly and educating them about how Agile works. It was important to get business partners to buy into MVPs, or minimum viable products, for example. This is an Agile concept that focuses on giving customers products or services with just enough features to satisfy their needs but then allowing them to provide feedback to improve the capabilities.

“The [business] mindset for a long time was, ‘If you tell me I'm going to get little pieces, I'll never get the whole thing’,” Lowell explains. “So, [in IT] we had to rely on that credibility we’ve established to say, ‘No, you will get it, but the best way for you to get what you most want fastest—the way for you to get value fastest—is for us to deliver in increments’.”

As the teams grew more comfortable with the new approach, everyone began to see the value of the resulting agility.

“Now, business owners can say … ‘Our competitors just came out with this new feature and we’ve got to do it as well’,” and then IT can respond quickly, Lowell explains. Previously, IT might have said, ‘Well, it’s not on the roadmap … so, we can give you that – in 2027,” he jokes. But now, change is an expected part of the service development process.

Going cloud-native

In addition to implementing Agile methodologies, UScellular is adopting cloud-native technology wherever it makes sense.

“If we were a greenfield startup … I don’t think I would consider anything but cloud-native,” Lowell says. “But we’ve been operating for decades, and in some cases, it just doesn’t make sense to move an existing platform to become cloud-native.”

Like most CSPs, UScellular has prioritized cloud-native support systems for customer experience, with a focus on omnichannel to allow customers to connect with the company however they choose, whether it’s through a retail store, mobile app, website, voice, chat or text. Lowell notes that digital channels are quickly becoming a main focus. He discussed this during a recent TM Forum Digital Leadership Summit.

“Knowing that [digital] is an objective of the business, it becomes an IT objective,” Lowell says.

Skills trifecta

Adoption of Agile practices and cloud-native technology requires new skills, of course, and UScellular is competing with every other enterprise to acquire them. The company has an internship program for recent grads and actively seeks out new recruits. But a major focus is also on reskilling – not only to acquire tech skills, but also to develop business skills and what Lowell refers to as “human” skills.

The tech skills UScellular wants are in demand everywhere: software engineering and development; cyber security; web development; and data science such as analytics and AI. Perhaps surprisingly, finding and developing these skills has been easier than acquiring the business and human skills.

Lowell is looking for technology leaders who understand how the business makes money and business leaders who used to be technologists, and these folks are not easy to find. For example, technologists need to be able to understand how money flows through the company, what creates expense, and the distinction between an expense and a capital investment, because this knowledge can help them improve the profitability of a new product.

He is also looking for people with human traits such as courage, curiosity, confidence, humility and perseverance. Lowell notes that a coach once gave him advice that has stuck with him for years: “As a leader, you’ve got to be productive in the face of ambiguity.”

He explains: “You can’t get paralyzed by an ambiguous situation. You can’t waste time. You’ve just got to produce – you’ve got to move and be comfortable and confident enough to do that.”

UScellular is reskilling through a few programs. One called Technology University is primarily an online curriculum that helps employees develop skills broadly and deeply. For example, a customer care rep might use the program first to learn about what it takes to become a developer, but then go deeper by taking classes to transition into the role.

The company also has a program to help IT staff members develop the leadership qualities necessary to land new roles within the UScellular organization. The program, which includes education and mentorship by senior leaders, is not mandatory, but it helps people advance their careers. It has delivered good results, with about a third of participants being promoted.

“What I think is as valuable as those real results is that the program became a way to retain people,” Lowell says. “People saw that, ‘Hey, you’re a great technical resource – we want to invest in you to for you to grow’.”