As organisations across industries strive to become more adaptive and responsive to changing market dynamics, embracing agile principles and ways of working has become a strategic imperative. In the financial services sector, where regulatory complexities, evolving customer expectations, and disruptive technologies demand continuous innovation, a shift to a more responsive and nimble way of delivering customer value is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge.
Keeping up with the pace of change
One of Projective Group’s recent engagements involved supporting a global specialty insurance provider in their organisation-wide agile transformation journey. The client recognised the need to adopt agile practices across their Business Change delivery portfolios to foster a more collaborative, customer-centric, and adaptable way of delivering change to both their internal and external customers. With multiple legacy systems, siloed teams, and a traditional waterfall approach to project delivery, the organisation faced significant challenges in keeping up with the pace of change and meeting customer needs.
Projective Group was tasked with facilitating this transition by providing experienced Agile Delivery Leads, Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and Agile Business Analysts. Our team of digital transformation consultants embedded themselves within the client’s Risk, Regulatory, and Compliance portfolio, working across multiple cross-regional initiatives spanning financial crime risk, data records management, climate risk change, digital operational resilience, and more.
Hands-on delivery, collaborative teams, and user-centric design
Hands-on delivery from day 1
Through hands-on delivery, coaching, and role-modelling of agile practices and behaviours, our consultants supported the adoption of industry-recognised frameworks such as Scrum and Kanban, as well as agile tooling and reporting mechanisms. We conducted user story writing workshops, introduced story slicing techniques, facilitated estimation sessions, and set up agile tooling and reporting mechanisms. Additionally, we worked closely with Change Managers to integrate agility into the organisation’s existing Change Management (ADKAR) methodology, ensuring a seamless transition to business-as-usual for teams and the ultimate realisation of business value.
Nurturing a shift to cross-functional, high-performing teams
One of the key outcomes of our engagement was fostering a culture of cross-functional collaboration and breaking down organisational silos. By establishing cross-functional teams and promoting adaptive planning, we enabled a shift towards outcome-driven delivery and a broader adoption of team goal-setting frameworks, such as Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) across delivery teams. This approach fostered a sense of ownership, improved communication, and enabled faster decision-making.
Putting the end-user at the heart
We also emphasised the importance of user-centric design, introducing design thinking practices and techniques whenever possible to ensure that the delivery teams had a real understanding of the end user problem statement they were tackling. This insight-driven approach helped teams prioritise features and deliver solutions that truly addressed user needs.
Greater results with agile adoption
The overall outcomes were an acceleration of the employees’ learning curves and an improved understanding and implementation of agile ways of working through hands-on coaching, workshops, and knowledge sharing sessions. This consistent adoption of agile roles, ceremonies, and reporting across initiatives led to increased cross-functional collaboration and a culture of teamwork.
By breaking down silos within the Business and Technology organisation, we fostered better communication, shared understanding, and faster decision-making. Our shift towards adaptive planning and focus on outcomes over outputs, enabled by the wider adoption of OKRs, helped teams prioritise work based on business value and customer impact.
Conclusion
By leveraging Projective Group’s deep expertise in the financial services and insurance industries, combined with our understanding of the complex nature of achieving full organisational agility, alongside our ability to deliver impactful change with a global footprint, we empowered our client to embrace agility and drive organisational transformation in the Risk & Regulatory space successfully.
We are strong believers that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to organisational agility, and every client’s journey to improving the flow of value will be different. If you want to find out more about our approach to agility, get in touch with our team of experts.
