David Bogaerts, a senior lean agile coach at ING Bank, discusses the bank's transition to a lean agile enterprise to improve speed and efficiency in software delivery processes amidst changing customer expectations. The journey has resulted in significant improvements, including a 37% faster time to market and increased efficiency, with a focus on continuous delivery and value creation. Training for management and employees is crucial for sustaining this transformation and addressing ongoing challenges in implementing agile practices.

1. 27th of September
Istanbul, Turkey
Becoming a Lean Agile Enterprise
why a focus on becoming faster is the essence
David Bogaerts - ING

2. Who am I?
David is a Senior Lean Agile Coach at ING Bank in the Netherlands. He started
in the Lean Office environment before moving into Lean IT and Agile. At the
moment he is working on the Lean Agile transition in the IT department of ING
NL.
David Bogaerts
M: +31 6 11953416
E: david.bogaerts@ing.nl
David has worked as a Lean Coach since February 2007. Before working as a
Lean Coach, David was a change manager, and business consultant for ING.
During this period he was involved in reorganization, outsourcing and risk
management projects.
David lives in Utrecht, the Netherlands with his wife and 9 months old son.
2

3. About ING
ING Profile
• ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin, offering banking, investments,
a variety of life insurance, non-life insurance and retirement services to meet the
needs of a broad customer base
• With more than 94,000* employees, we serve over 67 million* private, corporate
and institutional customers in over 40 countries in Europe, North America and
Latin America, Asia and Australia
*including Insurance Asia & IM Asia
ING NL
• 27,201 employees serve 8.2 million private and 66,000 corporate customers
• CIO NL is responsible for maintaining and developing IT applications for ING NL
• ~1,500 employees work for CIO NL
3

4. Content
Our Lean Agile journey from my point of view
Why becoming faster is the essence
Wrap-up
4

5. A Brief History of our Lean Agile Journey
Becoming more Lean
Agile every day
2013: Development & Maintenance
together in one Agile team
2011: Acceleration of Lean
Agile roll out
2010: Agile is introduced
2010: Lean starts in Development
2009: Lean IT starts in Software Maintenance
2004: Start Lean Office
People ‘touched’ by Lean Agile:
Results*:
37+ % faster time to market of IT changes
20+ % efficiency gain
100+ Lean Agile teams within CIO NL
More than 1000 people trained in Lean / Agile
*Some examples. Results differ per value chain depending on maturity
5

6. As IT we want to enable business
transformation
Grow and
transform
Grow and
Transform
Run
Run
General figure based on - Steve Bell: Run, Grow
Transform, Integrating Business and Lean IT
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7. Why we need Lean Agile
Economic crisis:
Customer behavior and
expectations are
influenced by IT
possibilities (Facebook,
Google, Apple)
• Banks are nobody’s
favorite
• Effects on our costincome ratio
To be cheaper, faster and more adaptive…
and our people are the key to success
7

8. We came from classic waterfall with a length and size
that competes with Niagara
And in the end our customers didn’t get what they wanted
8

9. We seriously improved the output of our software
delivery processes by…
accepting we don’t exactly know what we want upfront
9

10. We started breaking up huge projects in small chunks
of shippable software
To create a flow of value
10

11. So we are switching towards a focus on value,
but need to keep an eye on the whole as well
Company
Vision
Product
Vision
Epic
Theme
Shippable
software
12 months
time frame
6 months time
frame
11
3 months time
frame
2-3 weeks time
frame

12. So we are switching towards a focus on value,
but need to keep an eye on the whole as well
Company
Vision
?
Product
Vision
Epic
Theme
Shippable
software
12 months
time frame
6 months time
frame
12
3 months time
frame
2-3 weeks time
frame

13. So we are switching towards a focus on value,
but need to keep an eye on the whole as well
Company
Vision
Product
Vision
Epic
Theme
Shippable
software
6 months
3 months
12 months
So,frame are gettingframetime aren’t we? frametime
we
there,
time
13
2-3 weeks time
frame

14. Well, we encountered some issues getting our value
So we are switching towards a focus on value,
easily in production eye on the whole as well
but need to keep an
Company
Vision
Product
Vision
Epic
Theme
Shippable
software
6 months
3 months
So, we are gettingframetime aren’t we? frametime
there,
12 months
time frame
14
2-3 weeks time
frame

15. Well, we encountered some issues getting our value
easily in production
Availability
Test environments
Shippable
software
Processes &
Procedures
Deployment
Silo’s
Authorizations
Manual
test effort
Some examples of what we encounter,
have solved or are still working on…
15
Software in
production

16. Closing the gap step by step
Plan
Examples of experiments we did:
• (Ownership of) Test environments
• Automated build
• Automated testing
Act
Do
• Automated deployment
• Steps towards Agile Governance
Check
But it is hard to automate automation
16

17. Our current focus point is Continuous Delivery
“Continuous delivery is about putting the release schedule in the hands of the
business, not in the hands of IT. Implementing continuous delivery means
making sure your software is always production ready throughout its entire
lifecycle – that any build could potentially be released to users at the touch of
a button using a fully automated process in a matter of seconds or minutes.
- Jez Humble, David Farley: Continuous Delivery
…with Development and Maintenance working
together in one Agile team
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18. Working Agile requires a high level of cooperation
Inattention
to results
Avoidance of
accountability
Lack of commitment
Fear of conflict
Absence of trust
From: - The five dysfunctions of a team – Patrick Lencioni
…also between Management & Employees
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19. Struggle: empowerment is a very thin cord to
balance on
Managing an empowered team means being
closer to the team than before
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20. Training for both management and employees is
essential to become Lean Agile
Example of a 5 days training program for first line and middle management of the IT Value Stream
Time
Monday
Tuesday
09:00
1
Introduction
10:00
2
Why and What of Agile
9
Wednesday
Review Previous Day
3
Lean & Agile Principles
12:00
4
Basics of Scrum
5
OM of Self Directed
Teams
6
Mindset & Behavior
7
Waste
8
Reflection on your Why
& What of Agile
9
9
9
Review Previous Day
20 Starting Agile & Scaling
up
16 Continuous
Improvement Exercise
16:00
17:00
Review Previous Day
21 Agile: Practical
Experiences
Lunch
Lunch
Lunch
12 KPI’s, cont.
17 Leading the Change
13 Portfolio Management &
Planning
18 Being a Change Role
Model
14 Continuous improve
towards perfection
19 Agile: Practical
Experiences
24 Commitment
8
8
Lunch
23 Agile Safari
14:00
15:00
Review Previous Day
12 Operational
Management & KPI’s
Lunch
13:00
Friday
15 Seeing the whole
(systems thinking)
10 Flow
11 Kanban
11:00
Thursday
8
Reflection on your Why
& What of Agile
Reflection on your Why
& What of Agile
22 Performance
Management
24 Commitment, cont.
25 Evaluation
Reflection on your Why
& What of Agile
Drinks
18:00
19:00
First line and middle management are in the driver’s seat
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21. When the going gets tough
…we have to prevent falling back in our
old behavior
21

22. Create a system to help you in your behavior and to
solve bottlenecks
Senior & middle
Management
• Problems which
can not be
resolved without
help
• Solutions which
might be useful
for others
Middle & first
line
Management
Lean Agile
Teams
22
• Prioritized
problems
• Status on
resolving
impediments
• Solutions

23. Content
Our Lean Agile journey from my point of view
Why becoming faster is the essence
Wrap-up
23

24. Agile has many aspects
Test driven Development
Automated
deployment
Value stream
24

25. Agile has many aspects
Test driven Development
Automated
deployment
Value stream
How to get focus?
25

26. Focus on accelerating creation of value
Accelerate:
not just once, but a sustainable
speed
Value:
something that is actually useful
for your customer (incl. stability)
26

27. Focus on Speed, e.g.
Automation of all repetitive work
Governance focus on speed
Reduce hand overs
Remove unnecessary bureaucracy which hinder
the experts
A mindset focus on speed
---
27

28. Speed is the absence of waste*
Speed means flow: Just-in-Time delivery
Speed requires high quality
Speed requires a sustainable pace
*From Mary & Tom Poppendieck
28

29. A continuous drive to improve the flow will help you to
identify and solve bottlenecks
Customer
need
29

30. Fast high quality feed back on your work is essential for
learning
Plan
Act
Do
Check
Build – Measure - Learn
30

31. My utopia
‘The endless quest for excellence stimulates everyone in the
organization to make things better. People no longer see a
difference between performing the work they do, improving the
work they do, and improving themselves’
- Steve Bell & Mike Orzen, Lean IT
31

32. Content
Our Lean Agile journey from my point of view
Why becoming faster is the essence
Wrap-up
32

33. We just started our journey,
but we are on the right track,
and with every issue solved more
bottlenecks become visible
Some Results*
37+ % faster time to market of IT changes
20+ % efficiency gain
*examples. Results differ per value chain depending on maturity
33

34. Let strive for speed guide you on your journey
Speed as driver to get better
results on time to market (ROI),
quality and cost
Speed to make bottlenecks
visible
Speed to enable fast high
quality feedback to individuals
34

35. And…..travel
The bag’s not for what I take, Colson it’s for what I find along the way
- MacGyver, 1985
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36. Photo rights reserved:
Slide
8
9
10
19
24
34
Photo
Waterfall
Changed priorities ahead
Big Ship
Sailing boats
Tango
Micha’s desperation
Road
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Photographer
DrStarbuck
Domeheid
Lyng883
Ian Sane
Katagaci
Micha de Gier
Alaskan Dude
Image bank
Flickr
Flickr
Flickr
Flickr
Stock.xchng
Micha’s collection
Flickr