Continuous dynamics demand continuous delivery for KNAB

Challenging dynamics

KNAB is amongst the trendsetters in the dynamically changing banking industry where the traditional, bureaucratic, slow and self-centered banking approach is “old world”. The new world of banking is the playing field between fintech and customer focus. Today’s game is all about IT-driven financial services, online and mobile banking with rapidly changing apps that are seamlessly aligned with customers’ needs and preferences.

Wanda Streefkerk, Change and Release Manager, plays a pivotal role in the fintech playing field at KNAB. “Change was needed, urgently”, she says. “Traditional development methods are hampered by long intervals between product deliveries. And when products are delivered, they often contain bugs and don’t match customers’ requirements. This approach doesn’t work any longer.

Customers have become demanding. They shop around instead of serving a lifetime sentence with their bank, and they demand feature-rich products that are up-to-date with the market’s latest app offering. What’s more, they want to be heard, and this is why we introduced our Knablab, a platform that allows our customers to try out beta versions of products and provide feedback. In short, there’s a new banking landscape that requires a dynamic approach with new and rapidly changing products that cater seamlessly to customers’ demands.”

Continuous product improvement and delivery

Wanda continues: “The new dynamics require an agile approach with fast development cycles and seamless cooperation between all teams involved – business and IT as well as KNAB and its external partners. This is why we introduced an Agile and Scrum-based project approach, and little less than a year later, at the beginning of 2016, Continuous Delivery was added to the list of changes to be implemented.

After all, we need to optimize our development process, allowing extremely short cycles of programming, testing, feedback processing and deployment. With deliveries every day, sometimes even several times an hour. This allows us to continually improve our products and quality, and that’s what continuous delivery is all about.”

“Deliveries every day, sometimes even several times an hour…”
Wanda Streefkerk

Continuous delivery takes more than tools – it requires a new mindset

“Continuous Delivery involves much more than merely implementing a new set of tools”, Wanda emphasizes. “This is why we started looking around for an experienced partner who could assist us in driving the required change. After all, our situation was far from straightforward. Our development teams work with standard products and we involve various external partners located at the edges of Europe: Iceland and Bulgaria.”

“A challenge, to say the least,” says Wanda, “because the process of Continuous Delivery requires a united approach with seamless and continuous cooperation between team members. In addition to different languages – which was the easiest hurdle to take – we were confronted with differences in culture and attitude.

And when it comes to seamless cooperation, the right attitude is key. And that’s not something you buy off the shelf. That requires a new mindset and team-oriented attitude shift in which people put the team targets before their individual goals.”

Xpirit – a team with the right attitude

We posted a number of vacancy notices and consulted a recruitment agency, but because this involves a niche market, there was little response. However, soon afterwards we came across Xpirit, a Dutch firm of thoroughly knowledgeable and experienced consultants in the domain of IT, security and architecture in the banking industry, as well as Agile, Scrum and Continuous Delivery development methods.

Wanda explains the choice of Xpirit: “Even though their knowledge and experience was of key importance, it was their attitude that determined our choice. They invested in our project by spending a couple of days in our team before even mentioning any money or submitting a proposal. It was clear that their words weren’t mere talk about quality, but that they walked their talk.”

“In March 2016, Xpirit’s Jesse Houwing joined as a member of our team. Jesse offered the right combination of technical and tool knowhow and experience, and where and when required, he involved other Xpirit consultants. He was an interactive team member rather than a one-way consultant, not only pointing out the do’s, but also the don’ts.”

“He became a member of our family,” Wanda continues. “An extended family in which Jesse is creating consensus among all members – our KNAB teams as well as the teams of our external partners.”

“Xpirit’s words aren’t mere talk about quality … they walk their talk.”
Wanda Streefkerk

Sustainable value through consensus and coaching

“Consensus among all partners was important, even in the selection of the right tool set – Octopus. But what was even more important in enabling continuous delivery was a change of attitude geared towards close cooperation.

This is where Jesse’s coaching skills proved to be of outstanding value. Skills that brought about change, not from outside in, but from inside out, so that the new mindset is well ingrained. After all, change has to come from the people themselves. We have to do it ourselves; change is not going to work if it’s dictated upon.”

Wanda concludes: “Thanks to his coaching skills, the effect of Jesse’s involvement goes well beyond the immediate target of speeding up our delivery schedules. Initially the target is once every two weeks, but from there we want to move on a frequency of once every day or even faster. Instead of only delivering the goods, he has also brought about a long-term effect that will be of lasting value for years to come. He has managed to change our mindset, and in doing so, we received much more than we had expected or asked for. Without Jesse, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

Are you keen to explore and discover what doors can be opened for your company’s future success? We are more than happy to share our experience with you. Leave us a message or contact Max by +31 6 13468002.