THE CHALLENGE

FireDrake was engaged by a global bank to help design and implement a large-scale reorganisation in their Risk department, covering counterparty and market risk platforms. The challenge was complex, with a very strict one-year execution timeline. They faced:

a) An escalating demand to address, shape, review and/or consult on business and regulatory requirements b) An increasingly cost-conscious and budget-constrained environment c) A non-integrated legacy organisational structure d) Delivery-centric complaints from client stakeholders which was straining the morale of an already overstretched team.

THE SOLUTION

1.The change review
FireDrake undertook a six-week assessment phase to identify the root causes of these challenges, the scope of the department, client segments, and drivers of current and future demand. This involved meeting over 40% of the department and a large number of their stakeholders in the business and other functions. We identified a number of ‘hot spots’ and through workshops, prioritised a number of key areas. These ranged from defining and clarifying the directionality, priorities, scope and objectives of the department; addressing a number of corporate culture and behavioural matters; reviewing the end to end processes of run-the-bank work; managing a change-the-bank pipeline; introducing cost and delivery-focused practices; improving the department’s ‘image’ with clients, and managing their increased workload...with little or no additional budget.

2. The initiation phase
There followed a three-month initiation phase, with two objectives:

a) Addressing the strain on the run-the-bank teams (this had been flagged as a risk since they would be unable to handle a reorganisation without increased capacity). The aim was to inherently change the attitudes and practices of the team to foster an attitude of ‘ongoing improvement’ once the initial phase of the project was over. Significant improvements were made by the impacted teams over the course of three months.

b) Digging deeper into the key ‘hot spots’ already identified and shaping a number of self-funded solutions which could be implemented in a very short timeframe. We achieved this through a number of workshops co-chaired by internal rising talent where information, structures and potential solutions could be presented, debated and shaped into proposals.

FireDrake’s role was to challenge and drive thinking outside the box; link ideas across teams or areas of scope; track, draw-out, plan and shape suggestions into practical and implementable proposals. We brought external stakeholders into the fold, where opportunities could be streamlined with their priorities (with approval from senior managers). We were the cheerleaders for tired managers, the minute takers, the ‘structurers’ and information challengers. We were also the tenacious ‘steam’ throughout the course of the programme, making sure that our client maintained the energy to meet the deadlines.

3. The proposals
Our proposals ranged from scope of people to processes, systems and practices. A broad mix of FireDrake skills was therefore required. Suggestions were initially reviewed by a senior manager; grouped by headline area (e.g. organisational design vs. technology stack) and discussed in detail at 3-weekly senior management ‘lock-ins’. This approach was necessary because of the short timeframes involved in the initiative. Full support from the highest echelons was vital in enabling FireDrake to achieve these ambitious timescales.

The department’s stakeholders were made fully aware of their change aspirations, and were also involved in any workshops relevant to their interests. The aim of this engagement was to ensure the success of solutions which had an impact on other departments and also to gain support from clients whose understanding would be needed during the implementation phase - even though disruption was kept to a minimum. Their involvement was well received and resulted in a number of knock-on cross-beneficial improvements in processes.

4. Implementation
Once the new high-level organisational design was approved, we moved into full-blown implementation. During this phase we were able to:

a) Streamline processes, particularly ‘run the bank’ ones, to increase capacity by ~30% b) Clean and realign deliveries with the business and other bank-wide partners c) Introduce a function and practices to manage costs and deliveries across change-the-bank and run-the-bank platforms such as project management, project accounting and business management d) Clarify priorities, a three-year strategy, client groups, financing, scope and the objectives of the department e) Balance teams with a view to elongating the delivery and value chain (e.g. having mathematicians with the technology developers working on models in the same team; this minimised gaps created by the ‘throwing it over the fence’ effect often seen in silo’d teams) f) Increase and organise ongoing communications to manage expectations from all stakeholder groups – this was locked into what would become the new governance framework g) Realign financing - the new organisation had strict budgetary constraints h) Schedule training and ongoing work that would need to be implemented in stages (e.g. desk moves to accommodate the new team structures) after the initial implementation stage i) Finalise low-level details with a number of functions, supporting the reorganisation at the people, regulatory and compliance level. This included items such as new job titles, job descriptions, team modus operandi/objectives, compliance lists, policies, etc. These had to be ready before the ‘cut-over’ dates.

 

‘Fresh blood’, identified as necessary to acquire a number of new practices and behaviours, was recruited during this phase. The work to define new working models, strategies, objectives and key individuals in charge was embedded into the lower levels. We worked extensively with the senior management team, including diluting their workload across a new, much more motivated management layer; introducing fresh blood into the team to address modernised needs; addressing career progression, development and delegation questions to improve their performance as a unit

5. Ongoing
FireDrake completed the first implementation phase of the reorganisation at the end of June 2014. Ongoing implementation was, as planned, handed over to the new managers and teams. We do, however, continue to provide specialist services to our client, ranging from specialist IT development to greenfield technology programme management for the department’s largest and most innovative risk initiative.