New business needs and technological paradigms: supporting the organisational Change of the IT department

Summary

As part of a renewal strategy of the operating model, the company decided to redefine the organizational structure of the Information Technology (IT) Department. The initiative, as part of a broader Digital Transformation program, was developed to ensure both the necessary support for business strategies and to respond adequately to the new needs of end customers and distribution channels.

The reorganization of the IT Department was necessary to support future business initiatives (such as customer centricity and omnichannel, partnerships for new products, digitalization of sales processes) and to ensure the sustainability of the initiatives through the disposal of a management model of “application silos”. The introduction of new, more effective and efficient operating models (such as microservices and the use of new technologies, DevOps, convergence towards systems and infrastructures as a service ) was also supported through the project.

Starting from this scenario, Parva supported the transition phase of the organizational model of the IT Department, based on the COBIT5® framework and on the guidelines for IT governance and management, working on some categories of “activators” defined by the following methodology:

• Organizational structures: Definition and formalization of the main organizational tools (company function chart, systems mapping and related IT / Business ownership). The redefinition of the organizational structure was designed with a view to striving for a “lean organization” aligned with the principles of the reference framework and enabling the company’s strategic objectives.
• Processes: Design of the new IT processes necessary to guarantee the management of the activities introduced with the new operating model. Review of some processes that already exist but considered as essential to be adequate to the business needs and the new organizational structure.
• People, skills and competences: In order to redefine a ‘mindset’ and a ‘skillbox’ of the ‘key’ IT resources, consistent with the reorganization in progress, a mapping of the skills present in the IT organization was carried out. This had the effective of verifying their adequacy (with respect to the new function chart and the new processes) and determining the modalities of evolution necessary by area/ role (training, external support, acquisition on the market).

Furthermore, on the basis of the Kübler-Ross model, Parva developed a framework for the analysis of the organizational transition phase, creating a dashboard and indicators useful for monitoring the “organizational change” experienced by the “key” resources of the Management IT. Following the findings, specific actions were organized, mainly for the resources in the ‘depression’ phase, to remove the elements identified as the cause of the negative emotional state and to support the overcoming of the phase itself.

In the overall project context, the coordination of the “change management” and the interconnection between the ‘enablers’ solicited in the organizational transition phase was very important. Finally, Parva supported the IT Management in the gradual transition to develop new roles and new responsibilities, as well as in the definition of each detailed operational area.

Background

The IT Department needed to reorganize its service model, introducing organizational changes both at the level of roles / tasks of the ‘key’ resources and at the level of processes, in line with the new operating model. The objective was to strive for a ‘lean organization’ more oriented to quickly meet business needs, with a design of the structure that took into consideration, among the main variables, the specifics of the distribution channels, the adoption of new technologies to support the business, and synergies in the lifecycle management of existing systems / applications.

Parva was involved by the IT Management in the organizational transition phase, providing the methodologies and expertise to support and manage the change necessary to achieve the set objectives. The customer chose Parva especially for the knowledge of the reference frameworks, of the change management approach as well as for several organizational dynamics.

The IT Departments and the Software Factory, built with years of experience in Financial Services, have played an important role in the collaboration with the Customer and the success of the project initiative.

How we did it

On the basis of the COBIT5® framework, already being introduced at the IT Department, Parva has defined the guidelines of the approach to be adopted to design the organizational change and to bring it up to speed. We shared it with the stakeholders of the IT Department and subsequently, working on the main ‘enablers’ identified in the initiative set-up phase, we developed the ‘operational’ tools to support the required change. Analysis and monitoring tools have been developed ad hoc to collect feedback in the field, to verify the progress of the organization and then to trigger corrective feedback, where needed.

Outcomes

Our Consulting solution has enabled the client to realize the following benefits:

1. Formalization of the corporate function chart, according to the COBIT5® philosophy, built in a ‘bottom-up’ mode: active participation of resources in the management of change
2. Design or review of some ‘core’ IT processes: effective management of business requests along the lifecycle of the ‘core’ systems
3. Adoption of new technologies and operating methodologies and relative implementation in ’adequate‘ time with respect to business needs
4. Monitoring of change: identification of the support actions needed by the resources and acceleration towards the target IT service model.