case: apply agile principles to front office credit analyst activity

CaseApply Agile principles to Front Office Credit Analyst activity

the Goal:

• Illustrate how Agile principles can apply to NON IT business

• Try to ‘industrialize’ the Credit Analyst process to face the increase of volume

Key points: application of Lean & Agile principles on a real case

Better manage an intellectual activity

with Agile

Business volumes and sector expertise demands

are increasing

Better manage the Regulatory & Business

workflow with Agile

Difficulties to face the current volumes

Regulatorywork has to be

done

Improve the processstandard & complex

with Lean

Project CharterOne Credit Analyst SPOC per Business Center and share the sectorial expertise

the Goal:

• Apply Agile iteration to better manage both Regulatory & Business activities

• Apply Lean principles & tools to improve End-to-End process

the key points: the A3 format. Give all the key elements of your projects on a single A3 page so that the

Sponsor can take the right decision

AgendaFrom-To-How

the Goal:

• From: analysis of the major Strength & Weakness of the current organisation

• Design the potential Target and the Change Story to journey

What’s doing a Credit Analyst?: When the Relationship Manager wants to get a new credit line for a Corporate he’s asking the

Credit Analyst to build the Credit Proposal. The Risk Officer will study it and accept it or not, depending of the internal policy

regarding the Risk exposure the Bank accept to take.

o Current organization analysis: SPOCs by industry not clearly identified and a weak capacity management

o Target organization:

o Credit Proposal Operation: matricial organisation with a new position of Flow Manager

o Credit Process Desk: protect the CA from Administration & continuously improve practices

o Manage the Credit Proposal flow based on a weekly Agile iteration with Business Center Manager

o How assess the available capacity to present to the Business each week?

o 2 key information to monitor for Flow Manager & Team Heads: Free capacity & the 3 most important CPs

o Visualise your activity to better manage it:

o the Credit Analyst Whiteboard

o the Credit Process Desk Whiteboard

o Learn to say ‘no’ sometime … to avoid an unmanageable situation in the future!

o Credit Analyst flow cycle:

o 4 potential scenari

o the winner is … a weekly prioritisation meeting per Business Center with a continuous workflow

o The Meeting cascade: agenda proposal

o Apply Scrum Poker Sizing method to pre-cost CP during weekly prioritization meeting with BCM

Current organization analysisSPOCs by industry not clearly identified & capacity management can be improved

• Difficulties to face the current volumes

• Regulatory needs to be done on-time to avoid an unmanageable situation

• Improve the client & sector expertise coverage to satisfy the Business Growth Plan

the key points: use Lean tools to make the team do its own diagnosis and find its own conclusions.

Remember this simple equation: Efficiency = Quality of solution * team Adhesion

Target organization designCredit Proposal Operation: matricial organisation with a new position of Flow Manager

• Implement an efficient matricial organisation with static (organisation chart) & dynamic (meeting) dimensions

• The ‘Flow Manager’ is a Scrum Product Owner of Product Owner: its global view allows him to do arbitrage

• Product Owner are the Team Heads building a strong partnership with a regional Business Center Manager

the key points: use both dimensions. The vertical one for organization & hierarchical chart. The horizontal one for cross teams

meeting. To be efficient you need enough regular cross team meetings

Target organization designCredit Process Desk: Protect the CA from administration & Non Value Added activity

• Protect the Credit Analyst from Administration

• Continuously Improve the process by identifying Best Practices, standardizing and deploying them

• Support the Head of Department and the Flow Manager: generate sensible KPI to let them focus on decision taking

the key points: this ’process’ team has a key role to play to sustain the cross team exchanges and make the full department

feel as ONE team. For instance, it has to sustain sector experts to coach their junior colleagues

*LCC: Local Credit Committee *CC: Credit Committee

Target organization designManage the Credit Proposal flow based on a weekly Agile iteration with Business Center Manager

To better manage the Work In Progress (WIP), the 2 basic ideas are:

• The 2 major key contributors are accountable of the iteration: the customer (the Business Center Manager) and the Product

Owner (role taken here by the Team Head playing historically this role as also often the most senior Credit Analyst)

• Monitor the workflow with short iterations to allow regular feedbacks

the key points: build a strong partnership Customer/Product Owner. In this case, the PO is also in charge to make the

Customer take into account the Regulatory workload the CA team HAS to do.

Target organization designHow assess the available capacity to present to the Business each week?

• Combine both a short term view (mainly from Business perspective) and a mid term view (mainly from Regulatory work)

• The CA department is managing a portfolio of existing Credit Proposal (CPs) generating a predictable workload of Regulatory tasks as

Annual Reviews, etc …

• This predictable activity has to be efficiently anticipated and shared to the Business as a mandatory activity

the key points: transparency on the CA department activity can greatly contribute to the understanding and acceptance of the

business regarding the fact business can’t ask anything. It’s a step forward for learning to limit the WIP (Work In Progress)

Target organization designWeekly iteration to better manage the Workflow and associated Risks

the 2 key information to monitor by ‘Flow Manager’ (PO of PO) and Team Heads (PO)

• Free capacity (for next week, 3 months)

• the 3 most important CPs

the key points: Management has to be clear on its main Risk (e.g. the 3 TOP most important CP) and its available capacity to

drive the future.

Target organization designthe Credit Analyst Whiteboard

• Visualise your activity to better manage it

• Visualise the bottleneck

• Coach the sector expert in their knowledge sharing role

the key points: the CP process is often delayed by the multiple back & forths done between the different people Accountable

Target organization designThe Credit Process Desk WhiteBoard

• Visualise your activity to better manage it

• Visualise the bottleneck

• large activity to coordinate all the Credit Committee and to automate as much as possible the administration

the key points: the Credit Process Desk team is actually the one who’s going to take the relay of our work as Change Agent

Target organization designLearn to say ‘no’ sometime …

• Apply the Lean & Agile principle of limiting the Work In Progress (WIP)

• to deliver better

• to deliver faster

the key points: … and in this particular case, to avoid a real Regulatory Risk

Target organization design… to avoid to have an unmanageable situation in the future

• Apply the Lean & Agile principle of limiting the Work In Progress (WIP)

• To avoid a real Regulatory Risk

the key points: it’s not because it’s the Business you can’t say no. Anyway, facts will say No for you

Target organization designCredit Analyst flow cycle: scenario 1

• Fortnightly prioritization per geographical Business Center (BC): 6 meetings

• with a 2 weeks iteration

• Flow Manager & Head of Department (CA and/or Business) are there for key arbitrage

the key points:


• Fortnightly prioritisation per geographical Business Center (BC): one common meeting



the key points: How to do in practice a common meeting with all the geographical Business Center Managers?


• Fortnightly prioritisation per geographical Business Center (BC): combine common & individual meeting



the key points: How to do in practice a common meeting with all the geographical Business Center Managers?


• weekly prioritisation per geographical Business Center (BC): 6 meetings

• with a continuous flow (Kanban mode) monitored weekly


the key points: CA found easier to have a continuous flow of CP than to have real iteration of one week. It’s a question of

perception more than a real difference in practice

Target organization designCredit Analyst flow cycle: the winner is scenario 4

• Use a comparison matrix to clearly write down the objectives & constraints as you do to buy your car

• Make the group define common objectives/constraints

• Then make them assess the different solutions

the key points: If the team agrees on objectives they will agree on the solution. If they don’t agree on objectives, how do you

want them agree on the solution. Impossible!

Target organization designMeeting Cascade: BC - TH meeting agenda proposal

• Review WIP status

• For next week and next 3 months

• Review overdue CPs

• Review Credit Analyst capacity

the key points: x

Target organization designMeeting Cascade: CA Department capacity management meeting agenda proposal

• Every week, Credit Analyst Team Head meeting with Flow Manager and Head of Department

• Review for next week

• Review for the next 3 & 6 months

the key points: key meeting to manage the plan to improve the sector expertise coverage i.e. do arbitrage regarding the use of

sector expert and how those sector expert drive their own training/coaching plan for junior colleagues

Target organization designGrid to pre-cost CP during weekly prioritization meeting with BCM: example 1

• Credit Proposal is an intellectual activity as development

• The idea is to use Scrum techniques to quickly do a high-costing so that Team Head & Business Center

Manager can decide a Go/NoGo

the key points: the goal is not to price precisely. The goal is to have an idea quite representative of the team real productivity

to take a decision. If the Go is decided then a precise pricing can be done to point out large difference with the previous one

and to mitigate the risk of planning

Target organization designGrid to pre-cost CP during weekly prioritization meeting with BCM: example 2 without problem




the key points: the goal is not to price precisely. The goal is to have an idea quite representative of the team real productivity

to take a decision. If the Go is decided then a precise pricing can be done to point out large difference with the previous one

and to mitigate the risk of planning

Target organization designGrid to pre-cost CP during weekly prioritization meeting with BCM: example 3 with a problem




the key points: each team should build his own grid representative of his reality. The danger with benchmark is when they are

not representative of your reality

AppendixDiagnosis example: Object modelisation of the Credit Analyst activity

• Object modelisation or Mind Map is an easy way to structure notes when your interviewing someone

• As visual, it is also helping you to memorise key data and how they are linked

• It’s also a good technique to make expert validate your understanding

the key points: technique derived from the IT object modelisation also now called as Mind mapping

AppendixDiagnosis example: process map to assess workload, leadtime, waiting time & major problems

• Lean diagnosis always starts with mapping

• How can you improve a process you can’t see?

• In Service, most of the processes are abstract: so first, visualize. Then, ask people about their problems

the key points: make people problems visible. Make people share & challenge their problems. Make people find their most

impacting problem. Make people define their problems through their impacts.

AppendixDiagnosis example: based on the process map build a RA(CI) to highlight problems regarding R & A

• A Lean Best Practice is to have R & A in the same box meaning the one Doing is also Accountable

• Often waiting time is due to the validation of people who are not available to validate

• The only exception to that rule is for ‘4 eyes’ control

the key points: pay attention to not abuse of ‘4 eyes’ control as structurally they might generate some waiting time. Challenge

the limits. Sometimes limits are historical and out of this historical context don’t have no more sense

AppendixDiagnosis example: split the activity by family & analyse the last 3 to 6 months of activity

• A common mistake is to merge several family of process into one

• If you do so, the result of your diagnosis will be … strange

• If someone tells you the CP might take from 4 hours to 30 days, you might have several families

• Try standard versus complex and detail complex if needed

the key points: be careful with figures and quantification. It’s easy to make say silly conclusion to figures if they are not taken

and analyzed with caution. So always use techniques to challenge your figures … with people perception for instance. Always

challenge qualitative with quantitative and vice versa

case: apply agile principles to front office credit analyst activity

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