Situation
Our client, a major global investment bank, was still using waterfall methodologies for developing programmes, a highly inefficient way to support business change. Waterfall meant there were long, drawn-out cycles for major releases with highly complex implementations, resulting in long delays in seeing any benefit from IT implementations. This was frustrating for the teams involved and for the business.
The void between the business, change teams and IT was significant, meaning requirements were often badly interpreted so not delivered correctly. There was also a perceived lack of ownership of the platform, so expectations were poorly managed.
Approach
Valcon was engaged due to its expertise in agile and SAFe, the framework for achieving business agility. The bank needed Valcon to support the transformation of the department’s operating model through the adoption of SAFe and scaled agile delivery practices.
Valcon deployed a team of agile coaches and specialist training consultants to define and implement a six-month agile transformation roadmap. The team performed a review of operating model and gap analysis of current and future practices. They also developed a transformation roadmap outlining the steps that needed to be taken involving people, processes, the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and platform implementation and change frameworks.
The team was responsible for rolling out agile training to all areas of the business, educating people how to define requirements, develop solutions collaboratively with end users and how to adapt their working practices to align to SAFe. Valcon rolled out lean product development and the move to short and frequent development life cycles. Valcon also showed the bank how to develop the solution in the context of the wider business – risk, treasury and finance.
Results
- Faster time to market: colleagues were empowered to make quicker decisions, communicate more effectively, streamline operations and stay focused on the business requirements for product development.
- Improvements in quality: integrating quality into every step of the development cycle including working practices during investment governance cycles, through to SDLC / coding practices and new deployment procedures.
- Improvements in productivity: by empowering teams to eliminate unnecessary work, remove delays, continuously improve and ensure they are building the right things, Valcon was able to positively impact productivity levels.
- Better employee engagement: improved autonomy, mastery and purpose – all staff had their role in the framework and a sense of ownership with clear product ownership and accountability throughout the teams.
