Nowadays agile is spreading from software development to organisational redesign. An article on the website of the INSEAD business school offers the thoughts of the manager who led the transformation of ING and is currently working on the transformation of Sberbank.
In his view, the increased expectations of customers are putting more pressure on companies across the board. Today, your direct competitor is no longer the benchmark: that role has been taken over by Amazon. For banks this means that, for example, when people are used to Amazon delivering packages the very same day of the order, they demand a similar pace in banking as well.
Today, the standards are set by digital innovators. If there are companies driving change in other fields, you need to learn from them.
The transformation of ING
In ING, new small teams were formed, known as squads. People were suddenly much more likely to meet with real customers. The whole structure became less hierarchical and employees had to reapply for their place in the new organisation. A third of senior managers left since they were unable to adjust to the new culture.
Agile is about empowering employees to make decisions and shifting to a highly collaborative environment. In the case of ING, IT and customer-facing professionals are now members of the same squad.
Previously IT was merely a support for business people; now the teams are mixed. Since every squad needed an IT professional, new talents had to be recruited. In this instance, the results of the shift to an agile environment were impressive enough to attract many new tech experts.
-jk-