Digital Transformation Journey with Leading Australian Bank
ABOUTRecently, we were approached by an iconic Australian financial institution to modernise the function of their architecture. This banking giant leads the charge of digital transformation in banking in Australia. With big ambitions to deliver worldclass digital experiences and technology for its customers and internal teams, it spends $1.4bn annually on IT.
With the rollout of new ways of working called ‘PACE’, the bank faces a complex new challenge: how to modernise the function of architecture across a workforce of 400 architects in 4 domains supporting 5000 engineers to get on with the job.
To solve this challenge, the bank partnered with us. Our approach was rooted in ‘co-design’, uniting the bank’s organisational strategy and engineering design delivery to bring coherency between business planning and on-the-ground execution. Together we designed a new, fit-for-purpose model for creating architecture services to streamline architecture engagement and drive faster decision-making.
WHERE WE CAME FROMAs this project commenced, the first PACE rollout had just completed in the Retail line of business. With the second rollout underway in Business Banking, the architecture operating model and its approach to agility at this scale needed to be created.
This required an assessment of the existing architecture practice through the lens of consumers of architecture within the PACE model, which identified five areas of opportunity:
Relevance: Target the architecture services to provide just enough support while also integrating the Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) service modelwith the PACE approach.
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Empower: Push architecture decisions closer to delivery by helping engineers self-serve architecture guidance using a simplified ‘smart-risk’ and ‘fast-lane’ control framework.
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Align: Define architecture domain ownership boundaries and a common language and toolchain that maps end-to-end across the process.
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Reposition: Create a new architecture value proposition that better aligns with the bank’s ambition, becoming more strategically focused, and empowering engineers to work more autonomously.
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Inspire & Learn: Build the movement to shift from the previous project and solution orientation in line with the bank’s vision to be a product and service-centric bank.
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“The way FromHereOn manages the work, the relationship and expectations, as well as delivery - it’s light years ahead of what I’ve seen elsewhere.”
IT ALL STARTS HEREWe needed a fit-for-purpose approach to architecture services that would streamline architecture engagement and impact with engineers, management, and other stakeholders while building a solid foundation for further expansion of PACE across the bank. Together that’s just what we designed.
We framed the bank’s priorities as design challenges:
Enabling incremental autonomy
Speed of decisioning
Clarity on Architecture Operating Model
Our approach took 7 steps.
FROM HERE ON, IT’S GOING TO BE DIFFERENTOur collaboration allowed the bank’s team to arrive at a standard set of services while also considering the need for adaptability and customisation in the detailed design, proving an effective way to start ahead of scaling the service-led change.
The impact was more than creating architecture services to support PACE; it was about getting people involved in the co-design experience. The idea of doing "architecture on architecture" resonated with the architecture community and provided context for redefining the role of the architecture management office.
This journey demonstrated the value of learning by doing, and individuals shifted from focusing on job security to the value-add they could provide. The results show the power of collaboration, design-led facilitation, and a consumer-focused approach in driving positive architectural change for agility in large, complex organisations.
THINGS COULD BE DIFFERENT FOR YOUR ORGANISATION, TOO.As change consultants, we work with organisations of varied sizes and industries, playing to their individual strengths and constraints. Though across projects, our mission does not change: to simplify complex problems and realise your vision for the future. For the bank, it’s been to expedite the implementation of their PACE model with ‘just enough’ modern enterprise architecture to allow for stability and agility.
What will it be for your organisation? From here on, things could be different. Contact us now.