Agile in InsuranceImpact of Agile Implementations

Agenda• Background• Why should the sector care?• Overview of a Scaled Agile Framework• Adopting Agile

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• Introductions and housekeeping

• Background

• Why should the sector care?

• Overview of a Scaled Agile Framework

• Adopting Agile

• Summary

• Q&A

4© Scaled Agile, Inc.

Rethinking the organization

The world is now changing at a rate at which the

basic systems, structures, and cultures built over

the past century cannot keep up with the

demands being placed on them.

—John P. Kotter

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… 2020

“The highest-ranked challenges to adopting and scaling Agile continue to be related to organizational culture. General

organizational resistance to change, inadequate management support and sponsorship, and organizational culture at odds with

Agile values remain in the top 5 challenges. A new choice this year, not enough leadership participation, also ranked in the top 5”

14th Annual State of Agile Report

• As we emerge from lockdown and look to weather the effects of the pandemic, we need to find new and more

agile ways of working.

• Many insurers have piloted 'Agile' projects, specifically in IT software implementations, and most have taken

steps to adopt some agile principles.

• However, some insurers believe that the increased speed and flexibility that Agile techniques bring may not be

suited to a sector that is heavily regulated and traditional in its business practices.

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The ‘New Normal’

What is clear is that, for insurance and

indeed nearly every sector, there will be

no going back

COVID-19 might just prove to be the catalyst for innovation

in insurance, and we have a unique opportunity to rethink

and innovate as we adjust and respond to the ‘New

Normal’6

What is Agile

❖ Agile is the ability to create and respond to change. It is a way of dealing with, and ultimately

succeeding in, an uncertain and turbulent environment.

❖ The authors of the Agile Manifesto chose “Agile” as the label for this whole idea because that word

represented the adaptiveness and response to change which was so important to their approach.

❖ It’s really about thinking through how you can understand what’s going on in the environment that

you’re in today, identify what uncertainty you’re facing, and figure out how you can adapt to that as

you go along.

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Waterfall vs. Agile

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Big Outcome at the End

Agile Cumulative

Outcomes

Waterfall vs. Agile and how ‘Value’ is delivered

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Valu

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Time

Agile Value

Additional ValueWe are all ‘Learning’

Wat

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lue

It’s all about incremental development

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Incremental delivery

We should be adding tangible value each sprint

Testing and learning what our customer’s value

The Agile Umbrella

‘Agile’ is an umbrella term for the frameworks and methodologies that apply the values and principles described in the Agile Manifesto.

It can be split into 2 categories :

1. Lightweight frameworks such as Scrum and Kanban

2. Fuller frameworks such as SAFe and Scrum of Scrums

© Elo Akin

11© Elo Akin

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• Introductions and housekeeping

• Background

• Why should the sector care?

• Overview of a Scaled Agile Framework

• Adopting Agile

• Summary

• Q&A

Why should the Industry care?

1.Product Innovation

2.Digital Transformation

3.Business Disruption

4.New Challengers

5.Financial Reporting Agility

6.Successful Change and Transformation Programmes

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Agile continues to take the world by storm

A recent report from the Standish Group Chaos Study shows that projects based on agile principles have

significantly higher success rates than traditional projects based on the waterfall methodology.

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• Introductions and housekeeping

• Background

• Why should the sector care?

• Overview of a Scaled Agile Framework

• Adopting Agile

• Summary

• Q&A

Overview of SAFe® for Lean Enterprises

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Overview of SAFe® for Lean Enterprises

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How long term planning works in SAFe

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How do you make your business agile?

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Implementation Roadmap

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Agile Manifesto principles

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of value.

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

Deliver evidence frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference for the shorter timescale.

Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a agile team is face-to-face conversation.

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Agile Manifesto principles

Evidence is the primary measure of progress.

Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.

The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

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Scrum values

Make these things transparent: the process, the workflow, progress

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RESPECTFOCUSCOMMITMENTCOURAGE OPENNESS

Deliver value incrementally

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Fast feedback

Valu

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liver

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Time

Incremental

Waterfall

Agile at scale gets business results

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30 – 75% faster time-to-market

25 – 75% defect reduction

10 – 50% happier, more

motivated employees

20 – 50% increase in productivity

BUSINESS RESULTS

See http://www.scaledAgileFramework.com/case-studies

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• Introductions and housekeeping

• Background

• Why should the sector care?

• Overview of a Scaled Agile Framework

• Adopting Agile

• Summary

• Q&A

IFRS 17 Agile Implementation Illustration

❖ A well established insurer is required to implement IFRS 17 which, is a mandatory new accounting standard which requires a

change to people, processes, systems and data in the Finance and Actuarial functions.

❖ The Insurer is currently implementing a Scaled Up Agile framework across the Group and keen that the IFRS 17 project applies

this framework to its implementation.

❖ Our Agile implementation approach:

➢ Is designed so work is ‘pulled’ by the teams and not pushed onto the teams

➢ Focuses on defining the desired outcomes by creating a prototype which is then developed into a

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and ultimately into a Target Operating Model (TOM)

➢ Is focused more on delivering value rather than managing costs

➢ Is iterative and planned on a quarterly basis based on feedback from the previous iterations

➢ Manages budgets quarterly instead of annually

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© Elo Akin

IFRS 17 Agile Implementation Illustration

Sprint planning

Quarterly Programme planning

Sprint review

System Demo

Scrum team Sync

Sprint Retrospective

Programme Backlog

Design Principles & Programme Objectives

Prototype MVP TOM

Quarterly Programme Budget

Gap Analysis

Solution Increment

Vision

Scrum of scrum teams

Inspect & Adapt

A team of Agile teams incrementally develop & deliver our

IFRS 17 solutions

• Vision - is a description of the future state of the solution (feature and capabilities)

• Shared Services - represents the specialty roles, people, and services required for the success of the program but that cannot be dedicated full-time.

• Kanban - systems used to visualise and manage flow from vision to delivery.

Roadmap - is a schedule of milestones which are more detailed for near term

and priority deliverables

The System Team supports the Agile development environment, typically will perform end-to-end Solution testing and assists with

deployment and Release Management

Applied main components of the Scrum Framework:

• Scrum roles• Scrum Artifacts• Scrum events

Adhere to the Scrum principles of :• Transparency

• Inspection• Adaptation

IFRS 17 Transition

Iterations

Iterations

Kanban

Pull

Data Store

Programme team

Multiple cross functional scrum teams

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• Introductions and housekeeping

• Background

• Why should the sector care?

• Overview of a Scaled Agile Framework

• Adopting Agile

• Summary

• Q&A

Successful Agile

Adoption

Culture

Capability

Capacity Commitment

Compatibility

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Adopting Agile Successfully

Culture – Is your organisation ready to go agile?

Culture clash

Culture change not seen as a priority

Underestimate magnitude of change

Underinvest in cultural change

Do not maintain the change

Value alignmentLeadership style & Decision

MakingCommunication

TrustFeedback

InfluencingDealing with conflictTime management

Expectations

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Supporters say:

• Our culture prevents us from adapting to changing environments

• Our stakeholders needs are not being met

• Our competitors are getting products to market in a fraction of the time

• The future is digital and we can’t compete unless are able to rapidly adapt our business models!

All changes will typically face resistance, Agile is no different

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Culture – Change Resistance

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Sceptics say:

• It’s counter to our culture, its just not the way we work!

• The stakeholders won’t buy it!

• We have a captive market, so why bother to innovate?

• Any business change relies on our legacy systems and we just can’t use Agile

Empowered self-organising and self-

directed teams

Disempowered and uninspired teams

Team can adapt and innovate during delivery

Project cant adapt to changing competitive

landscape

Early visibility of deliverables and ability

to course correct

Limited delivery assurance

Visual Project Management

Fake project reporting

Customer value drives focus and delivery –

shifts “power” to customer

Projects that lose customer focus

Collaboration/robust feedback drive early problem detection

Problems detected after project delivery

Responsive project delivery, if its not

working, change it

Rigid management and costly change control

Visibly committed leaders who understand the value of an agile mindset and actively promote andnurture an agile culture in their organisations

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Gaining commitment – Value and Leadership

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Commitment – Common misconceptions about Agile

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M O RE A DVA N TAG EO U S L ES S A DVA N TAG EO U S

Complex problems with an uncertain scope and unclear solution vs Familiar problems with understood scope and clear solutions

Customer needs and expectations are rapidly changing vs Expectations are stable with no/limited likelihood of change

Requirements are unclear or unknown at the onset vs Customer requirements are clearly defined

Customers are willing and able to invest time in regular collaborations vs Limited or no availability to collaborate

Need cross functional teams working together to deliver the solution vs Teams can only work in independent functional silos’ in

consecutive stages to deliver

Able to break work down into small value-adding increments for iterative delivery and use vs The whole package has to be delivered in order for it to be of

any usable value

Creative solutions and time to market are of the essence vs Delivery time is less of a factor and the end solution is predictable

Agile is not a silver bullet neither does one size fit all.

Some organisations are able to adapt their culture to accommodate agile ways of working

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Compatibility - Where agile is best suited

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Compatibility – Mixing Agile and Waterfall

Waterfall Project

Agile Delivery

Agile Delivery

Waterfall Planning and

Scoping

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• Gradual buy-in - introducing elements of agile delivery in a waterfall environment helps build familiarity e.g. – Waterfall start, agile end– Overall waterfall, with agile components– Selective agile

• Agile pilots – most suitable projects

• Coaching

• Training

Build a teamAddress Location

Requirements

Effective Communication

Empower and motivate

• Physical or virtual• Geographic dispersal• Post COVID implications• Management of trade offs

• Pull vs. push• Self-sustaining vs. direct• Self-motivating vs. command

• PMs first responsibility• Best team for the project• Reflect the right roles• Leadership mentality• Agile coach

• Invest effort in this area• Right fit for organisation• Re-purpose existing technology

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Capability and Capacity

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True Collaboration

Happier Customers

Quicker FeedbackAccelerated

delivery

Right focus

Increased Competitiveness

Motivated teams

Less ambiguity© Inastrum Consulting

Benefits of Agile

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Thank you to our panellists…

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Buki ObayiuwanaFinance and Business

Transformation ConsultantLinkedIn

Chris Hitchens Ho Agile Transformation

Chubb InsuranceLinkedIn

Elo AkinProgramme Manager,

Finance Transformation & ChangeLinkedIn