Customer: Global Retail Bank
Category: Banking
Geography: UK
Timescale: 12 months
Project Budget: £9M
Status: Completed
Tags: banking, agile, multi-discipline, pmaas, technology change, finance
Case Description
Our client was undertaking root and branch digital transformation in response to recent PSD2 “open banking” legislation and needed to ramp up teams quickly to cope with the demand and build confidence in the programme of work.
Whilst Digital Transformation isn’t really a new thing, our client had never taken on a programme of this nature before – agile transformation whilst integrating with legacy technology, and maintaining business as usual.
The successful project would go on to offer internal and external customers cutting-edge functionality and would make our client an early leader in the open banking race.
Gibbs Hybrid was privileged to support one part of the digital journey.
What We Did
Our client needed Gibbs to provide 8 ready-made development teams, 64 fully vetted and qualified people, within 4 weeks who could work within their “Hybrid Agile” framework and hit the ground running to be “effective from day 1”.
The teams would comprise of “SCRUM Master” certified PMs (servant leaders who could manage the finances, RAIDS and MI as well as support the client stakeholders and product owners), UI Developers to build the front end, Integration Developers and API who could work with the client’s API tools and help to resolve the challenge of integrating with legacy systems.
We were also asked to support our client with the shaping of the project, with our account and Programme Services team supporting our client’s stakeholders and leadership team in the defining of the 10-week sprints, 5 in total, over a 12-month period. Providing regular MI and status updates to show progression against the plan and offer advice, guidance and support to help factor lessons learned into the sprints and improve the customer journey.
How We Did It
Our client didn’t just want a straight resourcing option, and so, in this case, the service was provided under a fixed deliverable, Statement of Work, arrangement.
The first challenge was to qualify and onboard 64 people who could support the programme as required. We took the accountability for the quality of the service and removed the headache of identifying, interviewing and selecting candidates from our client. This was done through our own skills database, technical competency, open day events and individual interviews.
Once selected, our teams were put on-site within the agreed 4-week time-frame, and in some cases sooner. Using our automated planning and reporting tools we were able to support the client’s strategy. We provided customised reports and MI as well as regular retrospectives to improve each sprint and ultimately drive success into the project.
The Outcome
We delivered on time and to budget. But for us, the real measure of success was our client’s satisfaction, which was was always higher than our SLA measure.
Additionally, we supported our client throughout, helping to:
• Scale the team and support cross working and integration with other suppliers.
• Understand and work out coding issues arising from integration with legacy hardware that helped to form the internal standards and could be rolled out across the client’s wider programme.
• Support client’s communication and wider engagement plans to help foster new ways of working and adoption of the digital initiative.
• Work out the “bi-modal” trap that comes from integrating legacy tech with fast-moving technology – it can be done!