Overview
Our client, a large regional bank headquartered in Minneapolis, is undergoing significant digital transformation efforts to drive growth, improve operating efficiencies and develop consumer-facing capabilities that will help the bank remain competitive in the market.
The Opportunity
As a part of this digital transformation, the bank has been tackling the transition from a project management model to a product management model. Our client had been undertaking this transformation for several years but was stalling out as technical and business teams came to an impasse over how management processes and practices must evolve to take the org to the next level of performance.
The executive leadership team needed to see tangible markers of progress to feel comfortable investing in digital transformation and to lead their teams in this new environment.
Fahren was hired to bring an outside perspective and leadership to the IT and Digital leadership teams who needed a new lens on articulating a product management vision, framework, and mindset for the bank.
Solution
Because of Fahren’s unique approach to providing interim and fractional digital product leadership and strategy, the regional bank chose Fahren as the partner to roll out a product management transformation plan.
To help accelerate the project to product transformation, Fahren supplied the bank with an embedded product management consultant, Jen Swanson, on an interim basis to provide coaching to the product teams and strategic guidance to the executive leadership team.
Our engagement with the bank came in two parts. First, we set off on an 8-week engagement to develop, implement and evolve the tools and frameworks that they could use to scale agile product team practices across the business.
As a fast follower, we doubled down on this effort, committing to 4 months of embedded coaching and developing robust training, education, and community of practice content to deepen teams’ understanding of and commitment to these practices.
What We Delivered:
- A discovery assessment of the bank’s product practice needs, including an evaluation of the current methods, tools, and talent of the digital teams
- The development and rollout leadership of an Agile Product Framework playbook, including the methods, templates, and industry best practices that the bank needed to adopt
- Team coaching and leadership support for the business and technical teams to aid in their evolution in Agile Product
- Sourcing of external thought leadership, content, and resources to help galvanize the digital teams. This was developed with the support of executive leadership and featured authors and national thought leaders in the product leadership space.
- Training cohorts established with internationally recognized training partners, and broad-based distribution of subscription content related to best-in-class agile and product practices.
- Development and documentation of standards and common resources for training and ongoing content & education
- One-on-one coaching for product managers and leaders on the application of product management frameworks and methodologies
Results
This approach solved several key challenges. First, the additional Fahren resource helped alleviate a resource constraint by stepping in and leading the internal product management coaching team. Our consultant also provided sought-after transformational leadership across the organization to help drive alignment, transparency, and develop a clear path forward.
In collaboration with client leaders, our Fahren product consultant developed the tools, mindsets, and frameworks that the client teams needed to identify opportunities for learning, growth and new ways of working. We created energy and excitement for nurturing empowered product teams and helped executives lead differently to reinforce the new approach delivering customer-facing digital capabilities.
