Citibank:
Aligning people and practices to deliver effectively
In the middle of its toughest-ever project, Citibank's Product Design and Development (PDD), a large applications development and integration group, found itself in what software author Edward Yourdon calls a "death march project": the likelihood of being way over budget and very late was approaching 100%.
PDD, with a team of over 550 assigned to this project, was the biggest of 42 such groups within Citibank*. It had committed to a two-year, US$350 million development project to shift the bank's US retail banking system from a traditional product and geographic structure to one that would provide consolidated services across all products and locations to individual customers.
Running late
On occasion, PDD had delivered high-stakes projects late and over budget, despite good project management practices and first-rate people. However, the political consequences of being late on this project looked bad for the bank, PDD, and all the people involved. PDD managers were bracing themselves for a year or more of heroic effort in the face of antagonistic critics.
Consultants who now work for VISION worked for a year with PDD executives and management in a four-phase engagement. PDD delivered the project on time, on budget and to the satisfaction of its customers.
Diagnosis
Following a week of interviews and analysis, the consultants met with the top 40 PDD managers for two days. The consultants confirmed what the managers had suspected - the project was in deep trouble. The consulting team identified the source of the difficulty and an opportunity to repair the situation:
- Coordination practices that were not up to the scale of the project
- Project management roles that would not allow the speed that PDD needed
- Widespread mistrust at all levels of management.
- Management redesign
A joint team refined and implemented the consultant's recommendations, including a redesign of PDD's management structure and the introduction of new practices for project management. The consultants introduced new communication and coordination practices and provided extra coaching to senior executives, tailored to their particular management needs.
Coordinate people
At a critical phase in the engagement, the consultants informed PDD that, to succeed in the overall project, project leaders would have to get groups of people who weren't used to working together to collaborate with each other. The team designed and implemented new processes to help to bring these people together quickly, to work effectively with one another. By implementing this design, PDD managed to avert a potentially catastrophic project threat.
Building capabilities
While the project was underway, and in the middle of the consultant's engagement with PDD, Citibank declared that all its application development groups must attain a level three ranking in the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) within two years. Developed at Carnegie Mellon University, CMM provides a grounded framework for gauging the maturity of an organisation's software development processes and identifying key practices required to increase the maturity of those processes.
At the time, PDD was ranked a Level One on the 1-5 CMM scale. At PDD's request, the consultants helped the group rebuild their software development and process management skills so that they achieved Level Two and were prepared for Level Three, all in the middle of the same project.
Results in record time
- National implementation of the new Citibank retailing system began on time and on budget
- The PDD organisation significantly improved its capability to design and manage large, complex projects
- The morale of PDD employees improved dramatically during the engagement: ambition replaced doubt as the prevalent mood
- The development organisation attained CMM Level Two in what the independent CMM assessor described as "record time". The average transition period had been 26 months. PDD made the jump in just 12 months.