Abstract: This case study covers our experiences executing the Digital Transformation of a large financial institution across eight countries and three continents.
In the experience report, we'll outline the specific problems that Strategists, Change Agents, and Agilists encounter when attempting to do a transformation of this scale.
We will talk about:
- How we targeted a small portfolio to achieve a successful first pilot and how we leveraged it to generate interest from other groups within the organization.
- How we articulated a standard global strategy that included several portfolios across different countries.
- How and when we engaged with departments outside product development: Engineering, Marketing, Digital Sales, Business Development, Talent and Culture, etc.
- How we went multinational but kept the relationship with the major stakeholders to avoid engaging at the team level only.
Lessons Learned from Your Experience: - Executing a Transformation at this scale presents unique challenges, amongst them:
- We used SAFe as our reference model but soon realized that even that framework didn't have the tools required to handle a global portfolio. As a result, we had to develop a strategy with the COO of the group and distil it down to Portfolio, Program, and teams.
- We thought it all had to do with implementing Lean and Agile practices in the IT group. Soon we realized that we have to reach deeper into the organization to work with other groups that had an impact on the success of the transformation. This included the Talent and Culture group and their policies around bonuses and career plans for the recently appointed ScMs and POs.
- Even though the organization is committed to the agile transformation across all groups, we still had to develop a transformation roadmap that accounted for the fact that several core groups will continue to use traditional methodologies in the mid to long term.
- One of the hardest parts of the transformation is to get buy-in from many support functions so that they are willing to develop new processes and approaches that support lean and agile practices across the enterprise.
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