Let a thousand flowers bloom - but don't forget the gardener

A short perspective on architecture and approach for IT/Ops convergence in financial services

A lot of organizations currently are in exploration mode of how to tackle process simplification and automation initiatives. Irrespective of whether the focus lies on short-term impact from efficiencies or more mid-term productivity gains via automation and (generative) artificial intelligence, a preference is emerging. This preference is driven by the urge to “make it stick” in an increasingly demanding environment.

Let’s assume there is a target to achieve a lean structure for IT/Ops (with little bureaucracy) and an automation target of, e.g., 60 percent.

Three approaches are available to COOs/CTOs:

1.??????? Top down: Setting a measurable target (handling time, EUR) and employing process re-engineering; this approach constitutes a “classical” transformation, e.g., Lean, and can be very effective in recurring processes, e.g., onboarding, AML/KYC. The major challenge lies in the selection of the processes (you have to start somewhere) and the rather rigid sequential approach, making it more difficult to leverage team knowledge and insights along the way.

2.??????? Teams target (bottom-up): Still setting an overall target and defining the boundary conditions (e.g., tools/tool chain, methods such as Scrum or design-thinking) but letting the teams as process owners deal with the individual solutions, often across organizational units (“end-to-end”). The major challenge of this approach is to stay on top of the big picture and re-assure teams on the overall logic, otherwise the puzzle pieces most likely end up not really fitting together (breaks in tools, systems, data access).

3.??????? “Let a thousand flowers bloom”: This emerging approach combines an overall system architecture (i.e., a structure for data, data access, data flows/read and write in back end as well as communication), coupled with pre-scribed tools/toolchain and methods, with a high degree of autonomy for teams to sort out individual solutions in their processes. This approach requires a solid governance structure ("the gardener") to check in on progress and impact very regularly (bi-weekly) and intervene by re-allocating resources (people and investments) and correcting actions, e.g., tool adherence, data flows, prioritization logics.

The major advantage of this “gardenening” approach lies in the source of systemic renewal and positive energy that is generated by the teams experiencing self-efficacy. It remains to be tested for true superiority, but a promise is visible.