Agile change management as a success factor

The financial services sector is one of the industries most affected by digitalisation. The growing pressure to digitalise the core business and meet regulatory requirements at the same time is influencing the role of IT as a corporate function, its organisational structure, the type of collaboration within the company and the associated process models. This results in numerous transformation projects affecting not only the IT but the entire organisation. Due to the complexity of the necessary transformation projects, banks and insurance companies are increasingly focussing on agile approaches when implementing these projects. These two factors make it necessary not only to accompany projects with active change management but also to integrate agile values and principles into change management and utilise the resulting synergy effects.  
As part of a qualitative market study, Intero Consulting analysed the relevance of agile change management and developed solutions for its concrete implementation.

At the beginning of the study, overarching challenges in transformation projects in the financial services sector and how these can be addressed were analyzed. A total of four overarching clusters were identified:

1. Stakeholder management: In large-scale transformation projects, it is natural that a heterogeneous range of opinions emerges across all levels, especially in the early phases of a project. If this discourse is carried out openly between management levels, this can represent a major challenge for the project. For this reason, authenticity and support for the project should be ensured through clear sponsorship and uncertainties and differences of opinion should be countered at an early stage by actively involving all stakeholders.

2. Planning and objectives: Planning a transformation project involves a high degree of complexity. It is also a challenge to develop a uniform vision and to communicate this to the organisation.
   The vision should provide a framework in which a clear vision is formulated in the sponsor's area of responsibility. For employees, the 'why' is particularly important.

3. Project management: At the project management level, the results of our study show that in many cases there is a controversial view of how a project should be managed, what should be managed at all and what structures should be in place.
   The process model should always be tailored to the project and the respective circumstances of the organisation. The human factor is also a critical success factor. In addition to the necessary skillset, common values such as openness, trust, transparency and an open error culture should be agreed upon and actively practised in the project.

4. Project reporting: On the one hand, reporting was described as a challenge, as in many cases it requires a considerable amount of time and resources. On the other hand, errors and problems are often not reported or reported too late, especially in the early phases of the project. As a result, countermeasures are often taken too late. Reporting should always transparently reflect the honest progress of the project and never serve as an end in itself. Agile methods promote the efficient achievement of this goal.
    

The next step was to analyse the role of change management in transformation projects. In contrast to other industries and sectors, transformation projects in the financial services sector are rarely accompanied by active change management as an integral part of the project. In some cases, it is seen in the role of the project manager, and an all-encompassing concept is rarely developed.
The reason for this is often a lack of awareness of the relevance of the topic. As a result, little or no resources - both financial and human - are often made available and the focus is strongly on the technical implementation of the project. The actual change management effort is often underestimated. Nevertheless, there is a trend towards greater recognition of the need for organisational change management among many managers.
 

The final step was to examine how agile principles can be transferred to change management and how synergy effects can be utilized. Agility should not be seen as a concrete framework, but rather as an attitude, mindset and way of working that emerges from the 4 values and 12 principles of the agile manifesto. In the following, five agile principles are used as examples and their content is transferred to the design of change management:

Agile values and principles are not only relevant in the pure implementation of agile frameworks, but also offer considerable added value in change management. Their flexibility and adaptability make them an effective tool for successfully implementing change. Overall, agile values and principles offer a valuable addition to traditional change management methods. Agile change management promotes flexibility, collaboration, an incremental approach and continuous learning and makes it possible to implement changes more effectively and strengthen the organization's resilience to future challenges - in classically structured companies and especially in agile companies.