Author: Fernanda Cladera
On November 9th, we attended a presentation on a successful implementation of the Disciplined Agile (DA) toolkit at Swissquote, a disruptive Swiss banking group founded in 1996. Our hosts were Edwige Fiaclou (Head of Talent & Methodology) and Laetitia Aegerter (Agile Coach), who shared their insights on the benefits of DA and the strategies they used to implement it successfully.
First let us introduce the Disciplined Agile ® (DA) toolkit. It is a toolkit that is allows for a flexible and customisable approach to delivering projects and products in a timely and efficient manner. It is particularly well-suited for companies that operate in a rapidly changing and highly competitive environment, such as Swissquote. By adopting DA, companies can improve their ability to innovate, deliver new products and services to market quickly, and respond to customer needs effectively.
Edwige and Laetitia shared their experiences leading the implementation of DA at Swissquote in a dynamic and fast-paced environment.
What were the key challenges you faced when introducing Disciplined Agile to Swissquote?
The first challenge was selecting the right Framework. It needed to be flexible enough to adapt to our context, and scalable to address the entire company, not just the Development Department. As with all change, one encounters resistance, and one needs to manage it. We had to actively communicate and explain the benefits of adopting Disciplined Agile, as well as how this approach could better meet our needs in achieving 'True Business Agility'.
Another challenge was aligning the different departments and establishing a common understanding of Disciplined Agile.
How did you use Disciplined Agile ® to fit the unique context of Swissquote?
Disciplined Agile ® is not prescriptive, because it is a toolbox from which teams can choose practices that fit their context. It is flexible by essence, and one of its core principles is "Context Counts." This means that Disciplined Agile can be adapted to fit any organization or project, regardless of size, complexity, or industry. No matter the context, DA can help teams to improve their agility and deliver value to their stakeholders. The only condition from the Methodology Team is to make the “Choose Your WoW” visible and transparent to everyone.
What strategies did you employ to gain buy-in and support from different stakeholders within Swissquote?
We used different strategies in the following categories:
- Sponsorship: Our CTO is a strong advocate, who actively promotes Disciplined Agile. His technical vision includes the view that agility as a key enabler in achieving our goals
- Effective Communication: We actively communicate and endorse Disciplined Agile through interactive discussions, engaging employees and keeping them informed. One practice that DA emphasizes is making work visible. For example, our newsletters share the success stories of DA adoption by our teams. By communicating these efforts internally, and by promoting them externally within the agile community, we gain visibility and spark interest. These discussions provide us with valuable feedback and help us assess whether we are moving in the right direction.
- Engaging Workshops: Several training sessions were held where employees could experiment and use the DA browser for real-world scenarios. This allowed them to discover the power of DA. A new training program has also been implemented in the onboarding of new employees, so they are embracing this approach from day one.
- 'Deep-Dives': Upon request, the coaches are supporting the teams to improve their way of working. They dive into the teams' daily lives to understand their context and constraints. For this, they are using the DA concepts and practices through the browser, the Value Stream, and the guided continuous improvement process. As an important final action, they share their findings with other teams as well.
- Methodology Radar: The coaches continuously share the practices that they have trialled with the teams, along with insights gained. It is then the case that insights are available to everyone through team experiments to test them in their own contexts.
- Strategic Opportunities: In parallel, the company was undertaking a project to review the entire project lifecycle. We were tasked with supporting this new organization, and had the opportunity to drive the entire value-stream mapping, as well as guide the workgroup using Disciplined Agile.
What tangible benefits has Swissquote derived from Disciplined Agile in terms of project success and overall business agility?
We are at the beginning of our Disciplined Agile adoption journey, but thanks to a few practices and concepts, we are already observing benefits from this transformation:
- Clear roles and responsibilities: Thanks to value-stream mapping, we streamlined the process and highlighted roles and responsibilities more clearly. We are working on checklist tools that would support the team in feeling more comfortable and confident in their positions.
- Business Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF): We applied a few techniques from the DA browser and implemented the WSJF technique to align stakeholders, and drive improved prioritisation through consideration of opportunities and enablement within requests.
- Emotional intelligence: Disciplined Agile greatly emphasises the creation of a 'safe space' within teams. We have introduced several interesting concepts, such as Goleman's Model, and have created workshops and exercises around these concepts. We have seen a drastic change in terms of collaboration, and interactions are now more efficient.
- Productivity: When the Methodology Team conducts a 'deep-dive', the first steps are analysing the backlog and tracking team productivity. By checking the few interventions, we have observed an improvement in productivity of ~20%. However, this is still the beginning.
Disciplined Agile has helped Swissquote to achieve 'True Business Agility', and in doing so, have improved in innovation, 'Speed-to-market', and responsiveness to customer needs.
If you are looking for a way to improve your innovation, delivery, and overall agility, we encourage you to learn more about Disciplined Agile. It is a powerful toolkit that can help you to achieve your business goals.
To learn more about Disciplined Agile, visit the PMI website.
A video replay of this event is also available on Youtube.
