Challenge    I am a member of a retail bank Strategic Planning department and my challenge was to  implement the Agile methodology in a traditional hierarchical organization. The main reason to  adopt the Agile methodology was to improve our processes, decrease the product´s time-to- market and be a more customer centric organization, being able to compete with Fintechs and  technology companies. The project scope included App Development Team (IT), composed of  15 employees. The project didn´t have any special budget and must not exceed 2 months. We  have focused on decrease the time to launch new features for the mobile app, considering that  traditional process could take more than 5 months.

Selection

Our bank is a complex environment, with more than 800 employees, dozens of departments  and thousands of process mapped. Our team believed that this environment was the perfect  place to use the Learning Launch Tool, because it was not worthy to map all the possible  consequences/effects of the Agile implementation with unfounded assumptions. For us, it was  time to go to the experiment and observe the results rather than imagine possibilities.

Application

The Learning Launch test began with 2 weeks of an intensive Agile training for all the 15  employees involved in the project. After that, the employees came back to the office and  started working in this new Agile way, totally different from what they used to work before.  During this time, our team (Strategic Planning department) tested assumptions that the new  methodology would completely succeed and motivate people. We were expecting to reduce  the development time of new features in more than 50% comparing with the old system.

Insight

Applying the experiment gave us a lot of worthy information and showed us different results  from expected. Measuring the data and collecting information by observations we concluded  that our assumptions were totally wrong. The mistake was we imagined that an isolated  department (IT development team) could work in a Agile way while all the organization keep  working in a traditional slow way.  We observed that the Agile methodology works very well  inside the IT department, but we forgot that an organization is not made with only one  department. All the times the IT team needed to have some contact with other departments  the workflow got stuck. At the end, the average time to launch a new app feature kept the  same as before (traditional methodology work). We observed that the bottleneck of a process  defines the time-to-market of one product. In our organization, usually the bottleneck is not IT  team, but back office departments like Legal and Compliance. Mapping this issue, we  incorporated new assumptions to a future study. We concluded that Agile methodology can

work really well when all the organization is prepared for that, regarding that the departments  have touch points and to a product be done/ launched, it has to flow through all the  departments without bottlenecks. We learned that we need to incorporate in our studies that  a product needs to be developed by a multidisciplinary team.

Approach

We believe that the Learning Launch is the perfect tool to help us to implement the Agile  methodology in our organization. Using the results of our first experimentation, we can review  our assumptions and drive a new test with some improvements. This new test needs to  capture and absorb the apprenticeship of the first experiment and, like in a continuous  improvement process, help us to find out the best way to implement the methodology.


Challenge I am a member of a retail bank Strategic Planning department and my challenge was to implement the Agile methodology in a traditional hierarchical organization . The main reason to adopt the Agile methodology was to improve our processes , decrease the product´s time - to- market and be a more customer centric organization , being able to compete with Fintechs and technology companies . The project scope included App Development Team ( IT ) , composed of 15 employees . The project didn´t have any special budget and must not exceed 2 months . We have focused on decrease the time to launch new features for the mobile app , considering that traditional process could take more than 5 months . Selection Our bank is a complex environment , with more than 800 employees , dozens of departments and thousands of process mapped . Our team believed that this environment was the perfect place to use the Learning Launch Tool , because it was not worthy to map all the possible consequences / effects of the Agile implementation with unfounded assumptions . For us , it was time to go to the experiment and observe the results rather than imagine possibilities . Application The Learning Launch test began with 2 weeks of an intensive Agile training for all the 15 employees involved in the project . After that , the employees came back to the office and started working in this new Agile way , totally different from what they used to work before . During this time , our team ( Strategic Planning department ) tested assumptions that the new methodology would completely succeed and motivate people . We were expecting to reduce the development time of new features in more than 50 % comparing with the old system . Insight Applying the experiment gave us a lot of worthy information and showed us different results from expected . Measuring the data and collecting information by observations we concluded that our assumptions were totally wrong . The mistake was we imagined that an isolated department ( IT development team ) could work in a Agile way while all the organization keep working in a traditional slow way . We observed that the Agile methodology works very well inside the IT department , but we forgot that an organization is not made with only one department . All the times the IT team needed to have some contact with other departments the workflow got stuck . At the end , the average time to launch a new app feature kept the same as before ( traditional methodology work ) . We observed that the bottleneck of a process defines the time - to - market of one product . In our organization , usually the bottleneck is not IT team , but back office departments like Legal and Compliance . Mapping this issue , we incorporated new assumptions to a future study . We concluded that Agile methodology can work really well when all the organization is prepared for that , regarding that the departments have touch points and to a product be done/ launched , it has to flow through all the departments without bottlenecks . We learned that we need to incorporate in our studies that a product needs to be developed by a multidisciplinary team . Approach We believe that the Learning Launch is the perfect tool to help us to implement the Agile methodology in our organization . Using the results of our first experimentation , we can review our assumptions and drive a new test with some improvements . This new test needs to capture and absorb the apprenticeship of the first experiment and , like in a continuous improvement process , help us to find out the best way to implement the methodology .