Agile was a primary topic of concern for insurers at Novarica’s Regional Roundtable in Hartford, CT. Here are some of the key strategies for success that emerged from Novarica’s research on Agile and the discussion from attendees:
- Expect to start slow, but start anyway. Novarica’s research on Agile has found that decreases in speed at the beginning of implementation often occurs due to a shift toward automation and away from the product. Roundtable attendees came to the consensus that simply getting started was key. “The true Agile way is to start doing and then figure out things as you go. We launched some things without having all the answers,” noted one carrier.
- Invest in training and setup. While getting started may be daunting, there were some strategies to make transition smoother. One attendee mentioned investing in full-time Agile coaches to move projects forward. Others mentioned more rigorous pre-launch processes, such as hosting multi-day Agile launch events. Carriers across the board emphasized the benefit of pulling operations resources in early, including automated security testing, to alleviate security risks.
- Promote empowerment. The Agile team needs to be completely empowered to be the decision-makers and for that to happen, you need trust. Trust that it will get done. It will be iterative, continuous delivery and with less technology debt in the end.
- Facilitate collaboration. One attendee identified an effective strategy for communicating with management and senior executives — emphasizing strategy and vision: “Your Board won’t care about features. They care about the big ideas and opportunities.” Heavy collaboration between IT and other business stakeholders means that even if a project has problems or misses a deadline, the overall satisfaction may be higher.
Overall, insurers hoping to successfully implement Agile should embrace change and be flexible. More than tooling and processes, successful Agile implementation requires an enterprise-wide change in mindset. “We are constantly going through the cycle of unlearning,” one carrier noted, and many others echoed this sentiment.
To read more about this roundtable and explore other key insights, check out President and CEO Matthew Josefowicz’s summary of the event.
For more on Agile, read Novarica’s Executive Brief, Agile Adoption in Insurance: Approaches and Trends.
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