3 stages to creating an agile approach to technology design
In our Journey to digital enablement series, we’ve outlined different aspects of our experience with implementing and driving employee adoption of Salesforce Lightning, including lessons learned across different stages of our transformation journey.
Now we’re going to focus on one factor that enables the success of an entire transformation: technology.
We knew from the beginning that technology would help us achieve our goal of driving worldwide collaboration. Historically, firms within our global network used siloed systems, creating disconnects that made us unable to collaborate fully. By focusing on a single technology solution, we knew we’d be better positioned to reach our objectives.
To get to that “one instance” of technology across the network, we took a collaborative and agile approach to its development.
- Get everyone on the same page
To get the best results, we had to get our people to buy in to the technology so they would embrace using it in their daily work. That’s why the first step in our process was to get our people on the same page.
We did this through governance and collaboration. At the heart of our approach was an 11-member committee (supplemented by a variety of user groups), with each person responsible for certain aspects of the solution and our implementation strategy. For both the committee and each user group, we brought together a cross-section of people representing different roles and territories. This made sure diverse perspectives were represented.
The benefits of our approach were threefold:
- Assisted with buy-in: By designing our solution based on what our people told us, we increased buy-in. Having them work together and make common decisions were also critical.
- Broke localized habits: Through our diverse user groups, we were able to break down the perception that each region’s approach was unique and had to be preserved.
- Agreed we’re more alike than different: By bringing our people together, we recognized our member firms are more alike than different. Our transformation decisions focused on enhancing our commonalities.
By getting everyone on the same page, we prioritized the benefits of focusing on global collaboration and functional and process consistency. To make sure the solution worked worldwide, we also had to address different technical and regulatory requirements. This was a complex task, but we knew the benefits would be worth it.
2. Design a system that works worldwide
Since we started with numerous siloed systems, we had to prioritize technical integration early on in our transformation. We designed our solution to be fully functional, with common business rules that could work in different regulatory ecosystems.
It came down to a simple vision: making the technology align with our strategy instead of modifying our goals to accommodate the technology.
Critical aspects of our design included:
- Reusable design patterns: Rather than making technical attributes and interfaces fit-for-purpose, we created broader solutions that could easily be reused in different regions.
- Continuous improvement: One of the main reasons we partnered with Salesforce was our desire to make technology improvements more regularly. By moving to a cloud-based solution, we were able to take advantage of Salesforce Lightning’s innovation capabilities.
- Strong accountability: We knew we’d be able to act faster with a single approach. But increased speed comes with an increased responsibility to carefully manage complex issues (e.g. cybersecurity and regulatory differences). To do this effectively, we needed to incorporate the appropriate accountabilities, responsibilities and checks to make sure our speed was balanced by thoughtful consideration and management of risks.
3. Focus on risk and regulation
To make our transformation work, we knew we had to invest in a solution that could handle different, ever-evolving regulatory environments. We addressed risk and regulatory concerns in the same way we approached achieving buy-in: through collaboration. We brought our key stakeholders together to drive alignment on risk requirements, then invested in the appropriate risk assurance.
During our journey, we learned four key lessons related to risk and compliance:
- Go in with a mindset of innovation. Focus on turning risk and regulatory issues into opportunities.
- Collaborate with people to get alignment on common processes.
- Remember that simplicity is a critical success factor — not only for addressing risk and regulatory issues, but also for almost every application.
- It’s an evolution. With an agile approach, designs can be adjusted after Day 1, addressing unanticipated needs or changes.
Getting it right
Full global collaboration and functional and process consistency can go a long way toward enhancing internal collaboration and improving client responsiveness. This is why we took a one-instance approach to our Salesforce implementation, prioritizing our business strategy over back office complexity.
Using collaborative approaches to drive consistency can also help address technical considerations, risk and regulatory issues and other complexities. Designing technology that aligns with your goals will result in far better outcomes than aligning your goals to technology capabilities.
We told you at the beginning of our Journey to digital enablement series that adoption is the key to getting the business value you’re looking for out of a technology implementation. The digital enablement approach you’ve read about in our series was critical in driving employee adoption of new technologies to deliver an exceptional customer experience.
So will your people make or break your transformation?
Find out how our digital enablement approach can help you on your journey. Contact us today.
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