Making the IT department a trusted partner

Construction phase and initial successes

From February to June 2017, the ANEO teams worked on building the agile support framework (agile center, coaching contracts, vision of agility at scale) and launching with BNPP teams the first operational support with coaches from various backgrounds with a view to extending the first initiatives as quickly as possible within the structure, including in less conducive contexts (outsourcing development to Romania, for example).

Dedicated initiatives have also been launched for individual professions and functions. This transformation is first and foremost for them, and the aim is to work on this business/IT relationship, which is always difficult in a context of constrained delivery. The first topic addressed is the budget process, with a view to simplifying it, making it more flexible and more transparent.

Up until December 2017, the transformation process focused on marketing the first successes and getting staff to want to switch to a different way of working, while maintaining a strong link with its business units and enabling them to share their successes and best practices across functions.

Ownership

The main challenge in 2018 was to support the IT department's operational groups in globalizing the transformation around the issues and challenges specific to their respective businesses. The first successes in implementing agility at scale left their mark on the landscape, with multi-team projects and programs delivering an end-to-end product with a true medium-to-long-term vision and a process and governance that aligns all stakeholders.

The product vision then sees its first initiatives. In a context where projects and RUN are separate, it's difficult to control the impacts and risks of production and to ensure end-to-end accountability. Awareness of certain scopes has led some projects to rethink the way they operate, in conjunction with their business line, which has become a true Product Owner of the approach, sharing the respective constraints of both worlds (business strategy and IT operational constraints).

2018 is also the year of innovation, with incubators becoming the capsule and on-boarding more and more disruptive projects for the business, both in terms of content (big data, chatbot, RPA) and process (hackathon to select a startup on a business topic in 1 day, or realization under constraint of certain high exposure projects to accelerate implementation).

Anchoring

2019 is the year in which the regal framework has been impacted. Requests for support and transformation initiatives have multiplied.

The agility put in place began to reveal a certain number of obstacles at structural level, a stifling comitology, sclerotic processes... Several initiatives were then launched, both on project processes, the rapprochement of RUN and build... and the setting up of a project portfolio with dedicated governance.

Most of the IT Department's operational indicators improved drastically (time to market, user satisfaction, cost and deadline overruns, etc.). Most operational groups have gradually taken over the management of their transformation, which has been integrated into the management of their business.

New reorganizations have been launched, this time with the ambition of aligning hierarchical organization and delivery to the business lines, and putting employees back into a framework of empowerment and responsibility.