Modern trends and recommendations for the development of large financial institutions

On 12-15 May 2019, PMI EMEA Congress 2019 was held in Dublin, which was organized by one of the industry leaders in the development of project management methodology - Project Management Institute (PMI) . The congress gathered more than 700 delegates from 70 countries and 450 organizations and became a global platform for sharing knowledge and experience in applying modern methods and approaches in the field of change management. In many large Russian banks and financial institutions, Agile transformation of the change management structure is currently underway, so analyzing the experience of aging in other similar organizations is an important factor in the successful and effective implementation of Agile.

As a result of the analysis of Agile-trends and presentations, presented and seen by me at the congress, the following conclusions were made and recommendations were prepared:

• Agile methodology was originally developed for the flexible management of small products with the help of teams of 7-15 people for the effective use of available resources. Scaling the approach to large organizations requires a change in the approaches of corporate governance, strategic planning, budgeting and thinking of employees within the organization.
• The implementation of the Agile methodology in some large organizations led to both positive results, namely, increased efficiency, reduced Time to Market (T2M) indicators and reduced costs of change, and in some negative consequences: deterioration of project implementation terms, planning quality and increase operating costs.
• An effective way to implement the Agile methodology is to combine the classical approaches of project management with flexible methods.
• It is necessary to take into account the national and regional mentality of employees when implementing the Agile methodology. National characteristics should be reflected in Agile training programs.
• In general, the role of teaching Agile philosophy and changing the thinking of the organization’s employees is underestimated. For successful implementation, it is necessary to drastically change the attitude of staff to the processes within the organization, to the role of teamwork, while highly qualified individuals can leave the company because they lose their sense of irreplaceability and uniqueness, the opportunity to be the only rescuer who can swim on the beach.
• Successful use of Agile often requires a drastic revision of the business model and organization structure.
• The role of the project office, program and portfolio project management during the transition to Agile is usually eliminated during the transformation process, which is a negative factor. As a result, there is a loss of connection between strategic planning, development of the organization and the actual activities of Agile teams.
• There is no explicit budgeting of new initiatives, since the budget is allocated for the goals and objectives of the tribe. Mechanisms for expanding and modifying tribe are not key in the methodology. This leads to a slowdown in innovation within the organization.
• The quality of the products is reduced due to the emphasis on reducing T2M.
• Regulatory requirements can be implemented using Agile principles, but with particular emphasis on the quality of the end result.
• The level and quality of communication between departments when using Agile should be significantly increased. With an inappropriate level of interaction and mutual understanding, using Agile will only increase T2M and the cost of implementing change.
• The use of specialized software for unified management of tasks, projects, portfolio and program of projects, target indicators of organizational efficiency, integration of change processes with ERP and CRM systems, significantly increases the efficiency of Agile and team interaction.
• In all Agile practices, special attention is paid to feedback, the analysis of sprints within teams, but at the level above (products, programs, tribes), this connection is lost for ordinary team members.
• Implementing Agile in a large organization is not a matter of one month, six months or a year. This is a systematic strategic work for several years with a fundamental change in all processes and principles of the organization.

Recommendations:
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• Top management of the organization should be a guide, leader of Agile change. It is necessary every month at the level of each tribe to speak to employees with an overview of current goals, the progress of their implementation, analysis of current lessons. Quarterly organize similar meetup between the leaders of the webcast broadcasts and the open participation of all interested employees of the organization.
• It is necessary to strengthen the role and scope of Agile training techniques. Training should focus not only on techniques such as Scrum, Kanban, but also on Agile ideology and philosophy, changes in the principles of thinking, innovative and non-standard analytical approaches. Training should be based on concrete examples and practices of large financial institutions, countries and regions. Additionally, it is necessary to conduct psychological testing and identify employees who are not ready for new changes within the company.
• The project office should fulfill a coordinating and communicative role (monthly and quarterly meetup), be at the head of strategic planning and ensure monitoring of the quality of the activity of the tribes.
• Agile principles should not be mandatory for all projects, especially when it comes to regulatory and regulatory changes. In each case, it is necessary to make informed decisions when using Agile in such cases. It is allowed to combine classical and flexible approaches to the implementation of projects.
• It is necessary to give special and selective emphasis to the quality of the final product. A working product is more important than comprehensive documentation, but it is impossible to create a quality product without proper documentation and QA, therefore it is necessary to constantly balance on this face, without compromising the quality of the product.
• The interaction between departments must be brought to a new level. Bureaucratic obstacles, baseless references to processes and GNI in cooperation should be strictly stopped by the top leadership of tribes, and promptly resolved. A corresponding on-line mechanism must be created within the tribe and between the tribes with the corresponding KPIs of all managers. It is necessary to create an atmosphere of general teamwork within the organization, rather than shifting responsibility between departments and blocks. The principle of people and interaction is more important than processes and tools that must be made basic when communicating between tribes.
• The motivational component of the work, the focus on change, and non-standard thinking should be combined in a single assessment of employees at all levels with clear and transparent feedback. At the same time, so that the expression of such ideas is not perceived as an increase in the load on chapters, clusters and tribes, transparent mechanisms should be created for expanding teams, increasing the budget, and not redistributing it within the already allocated one.
• Used IT solutions for backdocking, dashboards for Scrum, Kanban should not be limited only to their use for DevOps processes and sprint implementation, but be an informational basis for completing user stories and projects, portfolios and project programs, have an ERP system connection, link with KPI chapters, clusters, tribes and the organization as a whole.

Used materials:

Presentations PMI Leadership Institute Meeting 2019 - EMEA and PMI EMEA Congress 2019:

• Design Thinking to Improve Your Agile Process, Presenter: Denis Vukosav
• Artificial Intelligence Horizons in Portfolio Planning, Presenters: Umut Sezen, Christopher Reeves
• The Journey Towards Agility: Lessons Learned From Successes and Failures, Presenter: Simona Bonghez
• Product Theater: Successfully Integrating Agile Jira Projects into a Hybrid PMI / PMBOK-based PPM Environment Presenter: Gerald Aquila
• Possible Mission: Escape from Earth - Agile Edition - Business Simulation, Presenters: Santi Alcaide, Alfred Maeso Aztarain
• Survival of the Fittest: Taking Organizational Agility to the Next Level, Presenter: Leonor Viturro
• Dynamic Governance for Portfolios / Programs / Projects, Presenters: Teodor Darabaneanu, John Buck
• Agilely Vaulting Waterfalls: Applying Agile to Waterfalls and Vice Versa, Presenters: Karthik Ramamurthy, Sripriya Narayanasamy
• A Framework for Applying Agile Practices Within Projects, Program and Portfolios, Presenter: Nicholas Clemens
• Planning Matters - Even if You Are Agile !, Presenters: Christopher Worsley, Louise Worsley
• Embedding Quality Processes in Agile Product Delivery, Presenter: Geetanjali Bhat
• Product Education Session: Opportunities for Business Managers with SAFe, Presenter: Richard Knaster

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