Comprehensive Agile Transformation at a Leading UK Retail Bank
In 2024, a prominent UK retail bank embarked on a transformative agile journey to enhance cross-functional collaboration, speed, and adaptability across its various business areas.
With support from Lithe Transformation’s expert coaching team, the bank has redefined its approach to agility, achieving breakthrough improvements in productivity, visibility, and alignment. This case study captures the achievements and ongoing impact of this agile transformation.
Challenge
Despite an initial agile framework, the bank faced multiple roadblocks that limited the full potential of agile practices:
Fragmented Agile Practices: Agile processes varied widely across departments, causing inconsistency and missed synergies.
Limited Cross-Team Visibility: Dependencies and risks were often managed in silos, impacting the bank’s ability to prioritise effectively.
Scaling Agility Across Teams: As agile practices expanded, aligning all teams and stakeholders around a unified approach became increasingly challenging.
Approach
Lithe Transformation’s team of seven agile coaches deployed a multi-layered strategy that addressed the bank’s unique needs and scaled agility across all critical areas.
Consistent Agile Foundations: Coaches worked closely with department leads to standardise agile practices. From adopting uniform terminology to developing consistent planning and retrospective routines, the team instilled a robust agile foundation that allowed each department to contribute effectively to overarching goals.
Enhanced Visibility and Risk Management: Through tailored coaching sessions, the bank implemented a structured approach to tracking dependencies and managing risks. This included visualising workflows and introducing Continuous Improvement (CI) Boards that enabled real-time insights into progress and challenges.
Team Empowerment and Engagement: A core focus was to empower all team members. Coaches facilitated self-assessment workshops and guided teams in taking ownership of their agile journey, from setting measurable objectives to establishing collaborative workflows.
Scalable Roadmap Development: Coaches collaborated with teams to create agile roadmaps that aligned with the bank’s strategic objectives. This forward-looking approach emphasised forecasting, helping teams stay ahead and adapt to changing priorities.
Impact
The agile transformation journey has led to significant and measurable outcomes, enhancing the bank’s operational agility and resilience across all departments.
Greater Cross-Functional Alignment: By standardising agile practices, the bank achieved a more cohesive approach, ensuring that all teams work toward shared business goals with clear roles and responsibilities.
Improved Planning Accuracy and Efficiency: Through visual tools and real-time CI Boards, planning became more precise, enabling better resource allocation and priority setting across teams.
Enhanced Risk and Dependency Management: Regular tracking and transparent risk management improved responsiveness, reducing project delays and optimising team outputs.
Increased Team Morale and Engagement: Consistent team involvement in agile practices fostered a culture of continuous improvement, with each team member actively contributing to agile planning and execution.
Key Transformations:
Standardised agile processes for consistency and scalability.
Visual CI Boards enhanced transparency and accountability.
Proactive risk and dependency management improved responsiveness.
Team empowerment led to greater engagement and alignment with agile objectives.
Looking Forward
As the transformation continues, the bank is well-positioned to leverage agile as a competitive advantage. Future goals include refining forecasting capabilities, deepening risk management practices, and fostering an environment of continuous innovation.
Lithe Transformation remains committed to supporting the bank’s agile journey, ensuring that each new step forward builds on a solid, scalable foundation.
Tools and Techniques Used
Frameworks:
Scrum: Employed to support iterative development with structured ceremonies (e.g., sprints, stand-ups, retrospectives).
Kanban: Incorporated for workflow management, particularly in visualising and improving task flow.
PI (Program Increment) Planning: Used for structuring agile planning sessions, with a focus on managing dependencies, risks, and setting objectives for iterations.
Tools:
Jira: Utilised extensively for tracking dependencies, managing PI plans, visualising progress, and tracking key agile metrics like throughput and cycle time.
Confluence: Served as a central hub for documenting and managing PI planning insights, RAID logs, and collaborative notes.
MURAL: A digital workspace for visual collaboration, often used for remote PI planning, brainstorming sessions, and workshops to increase team engagement and alignment.
Techniques:
Continuous Improvement (CI) Boards: Created for tracking ongoing improvements and fostering transparency.
Confidence Voting: Applied across teams to gauge morale and alignment with objectives, though consistency in application was still a focus area.
Forecasting and Roadmapping: Techniques introduced for data-driven planning, allowing teams to better predict delivery timelines and inform strategic planning.