Digital transformation of Global Risk Management across the whole organization. The program started under a waterfall methodology, and transitioned to an Agile approach to allow for a phased implementation of features and rollout to jurisdictions.

The solution vendor was experienced in Agile development and was able to transition over with the support and guidance of an Agile coach. The GRM organization was largely managed by lawyers with minimal knowledge of Agile, used to managing programs with detailed plans, gates and strict controls in place.

Implementation of the main features required to be cut back 2 years from the original delivery plan and the confidence on a phase delivery of features was extremely low. Understanding of the agile mindset and principles and lean way of working was very low among senior management and the program teams.

Valstroom Actions

1. Developed a homogeneous understanding of lean and agile practices across the GRM organization.
2. Conducted a number of workshops to introduce lean and agile mindset to senior management.
3. Trained the program teams on Scrum and Kanban through hands-on workshops and as observers in the development team ceremonies.
4. Implemented a number of dashboards and information radiators that allowed the teams track progress on a weekly basis, improving transparency and trust between teams.
5. Implemented a number of tools to help teams manage time: time-boxing all meetings, conducting meetings in the hallway in front of the program board, including only people that will add value to the meetings, avoid using “reply all” when responding to emails, among other practices.
6. Established scrum ceremonies and coached the teams in the program execution following lean and agile practices.

Results

The client was able to successfully launch a pilot containing initial functionality into production after 12 months of moving to a Lean/Agile approach and started to roll out to all jurisdictions after 3 months of the pilot launch, allowing the team to complete initial functionality deployment 2 months ahead of the deadline.