TESCO BANK (UK) CASE STUDY - IT Change Programme

Background

In 2018, the delivery of one of Tesco Bank’s strategic IT programmes was at risk. There was low confidence within the delivery team, and across the organisation, that it would be delivered by the scheduled date of early 2019.

VISION Consulting (VISION) was asked to help the delivery team adopt an Agile way of working based on our principles of Commitment-based Management (CbM). This integrated promise-based leadership practices and project management built on a network of promises. Promise review meetings were held on a weekly basis, with coming-to-resolution and working groups gathering as required, following a rolling roadmap.

With sustained effort, the velocity of work began to increase, with issues raised and resolved much faster. Through incremental success and challenging obstacles, the practices gave the team more tools and language to move through unexpected situations more efficiently.

As the team cultivated their capacity to use promise-based leadership combined with Agile, they were able to shift from a fragmented way of working with a low team mood to highly collaborative ways of working with a greater sense of trust, support and achievement amongst the team. As a result of moving through this change process and adopting new ways of working, the project went live, as planned, on 31 January 2019.

Just as importantly, this was achieved in such a way that colleagues felt more in control, truly collaborative, and with a mood of optimism. Additionally, team members came into work knowing that they could openly discuss their concerns, would be listened to and could work in an environment of mutual support.

Encouraged by the success of this initiative, the Chief Information Officer decided to continue investing in VISION and embed CbM throughout the entire CIO organisation. This materialised in the shape of the Tesco Bank CIO Leadership Programme, conducted from July to December 2019.

CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES 

The programme was anchored around the central elements of CbM that had been introduced within the CIO team over the previous year and focused on the leadership skills required to support those practices (for example, listening for difference, being a good customer, and being a good performer).

The primary aim was to make sure that the programme was rooted in day-to-day operational roles and that the VISION team would work closely with the CIO leaders to make sure that the opportunities available to them to apply the learnings were real and meaningful. This meant that the CIO team had to co-design the learning with VISION coaches – the CIO leadership team had to own their own learning experience.

CONTRACT MANAGEMENT

VISION APPROACH

VISION’s promise to each of the participants was that the programme would be interesting, worthwhile and would support them in leading the change in ways of working at Tesco Bank. We also promised that the programme would be an active, engaging and experientially-driven experience with the participant’s own day-to-day leadership role at the core of the work.

PROJECT DELIVERY

The programme was delivered through a combination of activities:

1. 4 x 3-hour workshops

All participants in the programme attended these workshops together as core leadership and extended leadership teams. Each workshop had a specific focus, with the programme overview provided in the first workshop.

2. 4 x 90 minute learning teams

These sessions were an opportunity to explore the lived experience of the participants exploring the practices.

3. Applying the practices

After each workshop, participants began to use the practice in their own area of work, working with their coach to choose an area/team/project that made most sense as a place for the participant to learn whilst also creating a change by adopting a particular practice. The coach was there to support, give feedback and help to relate the applied learning back to the workshops and learning teams.

4. 1-1 coaching

Each participant was allocated a coach who worked with them to support the integration of their learning and the application of it in their day-to-day role. Coaches agreed with the participant the specifics of their engagement, including one or two formal coaching sessions per week (from workshop two onwards and  for the duration of the programme).

CONTRACT PERFORMANCE 

OUTCOMES

VISION used its change design and mobilisation skills to introduce a mood of ambition across the CIO department, and to anchor that ambition using a series of core practices designed to re-orientate colleagues to a new focus on customer-performer relationships and to deliver against an inter-related network of promises:

• VISION mobilised the development of the main promise of the CIO and his department.

• VISION used this main promise to mobilise its expansion into a network of promises for each person on the management and extended management team.

• VISION mobilised the transformation in the core and extended leadership team focused on embedding the new ways of working with the following leadership activities and characteristics:

  • Orientation and commitment to supporting the overall CIO promise.

  • Ability to define a personal promise which incorporated that individual team member’s operational responsibilities. 

  • Making a commitment on their individual promises which demonstrates an ownership and accountability for the specifics of their promise and its associated dependencies.

  • An ability to become an effective customer in their own right for their own performers in their own part of the network of commitments

• VISION mobilised a new team of Tesco Bank mobilisers and supported them in building their own knowledge of CbM conversations, while supporting them in coaching others in those conversations.

• VISION  introduced important practices on the ground such as daily scrums to deliver a sharp improvement in communication, coordination and collaboration. This quickly led to significantly increased productivity among teams that had previously been struggling.