My name is Yana Bort. I work in a Ukrainian branch of Raiffeisen bank. I joined the bank in mid-2021 to drive the Retail Banking (non-IT) transformation.
After achieving results in the non-IT area, I was invited to join the IT team to lead Agile transformation. I currently work as a Head of IT Strategy and Agile Transformation.
I became interested in Org Topologies about half a year ago, as the organization prepares for the next wave of organizational change.
Earlier this year, I attended an Org Topologies Practitioner class. As part of the certification process, I am writing this report to share the organization's change journey since 2020, which was assessed with the mapping method of Org Topologies.
Phase 1 (2020-2022) — Domain-Based Org Design with Technological Focus
When joined IT in 2022, I encountered this state that had been introduced earlier in 2020.
The IT organization was structured according to the Domain-Driven Design (DDD) approach, based on a mix of business rules, architectural concerns, and system logic. Several units were part of that organization: Payment, Loans, Customers, Channels, etc. We called them “Domains.” They can be considered containers of business rules and application knowledge. That structure was supported by a dozen internal agile coaches.
For me, it was a starting point in IT, but for the Bank, it was the middle of the transformation with many changes. The war dramatically increased the challenge. A huge number of people were displaced to temporary locations. Therefore, our priorities suddenly shifted from the development and launch of new products to preserving customers' funds and making them available and accessible for payments, withdrawals, and transfers at any time, from any location, under any circumstances and during the war.
The change in priorities affected the change, as the organization required new capabilities. For example, being adaptive and agile became more than just buzzwords; these capabilities became essential for survival.
DDD initially helped the organization focus on and invest in technology development. However, under new circumstances, it became an obstacle to creating and delivering customer value end-to-end.
During the phase that I call “Domain-Based Org Design,” there were many blocking dependencies between the teams and domains as most teams focused on component development (Y1-Y2, as per Org Topologies): Account Statement functionality, Credit History functionality, etc.
In addition to those teams, there were also integration teams that combined the components developed by other teams into customer-facing features.
Furthermore, other non-critical disadvantages that the organization had before became crucial when the priorities rapidly changed.
The product owners within the domains managed feature development that fit into their domain’s scope of work but not the whole customer journey. That is why managing and reaching business objectives was a challenge.
Phase 2 (2022-2023) — More Adaptivity with End-to-End Teams
This organizational change introduced end-to-end teams (A2, as per Org Topologies). We called them “Speed boats.” These multi-component teams could do 80% of end-to-end work within customer-facing features. An example of such a team is “Card-to-Card Transaction” which developed functionality end-to-end, including external and internal needs across almost all IT systems.
The change in that phase was limited only to the team structure, so the domain structure remained intact. The “speedboat” teams were formed within the existing domains.
Eleven speedboat teams were formed in total within different domains, which was a breakthrough as these teams proved their value and created the momentum for the next, more systemic organizational change.
Phase 3 (2024) — Business-Oriented Tribes with System Co-Ownership
Now, we are ready to drive the next wave of change. We are creating new organizational structures around business areas. These clear customer-centric units will have clear ownership and true end-to-end responsibility. We call them “Tribes.” Some of them are corporate Loans, Retail Loans, Corporate Cash Management, and Daily Banking for Private Individuals. To ensure the quality of the change, the Tribes are being implemented one by one.
The SpeedBoat model (fast-flow end-to-end teams) is a building block at the heart of the Tribes. The teams will receive work from business-oriented Tribes and can be assessed as B2 teams growing into B3 as per organizational topologies.
Due to our complexity, not all systems can be easily shared, so for the moment, there will be systems that are still single-owned by teams, and these teams are outside the Tribes. In addition to the business-oriented Tribes, we are introducing the notion of Platform-as-a-Service with the hope that this approach will reduce many blocking dependencies and enable our teams to work independently to the needs of the Tribes.
Our long-term vision is slowly moving all teams to the Tribe and co-ownership model.
Summary
Analyzing the waves of the organizational journey with the Org Topologies method helps to compare and contrast different org design options that we explored.
The mapping I did for this report helped me see the overall direction of our organizational change. Sharing this with my colleagues will enable more alignment and clarity of our change efforts.
(C) 2024, Yana Bort for Org Topologies.
This experience report presents a personal view on the change story by the credited writer. Should you have alternative views or additional details about this particular company's change story, please do not hesitate to contact Org Topologies and submit your version for publishing.
Comments