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A large mortgage
lender found itself with outdated systems, insufficient IT
talent, and an inefficient business process for determining
project priorities. Projects generally had no business sponsorship
and therefore little or no business case justification. Project
priorities were set by mid level IT managers, and no service
level agreements existed between IT and business management.
Project slippage was common, and business unit satisfaction
was very low. |
The IT department needed a complete restructuring
and business unit leaders needed to be drawn into the process. The
IT department needed a project priority system and management process
that ensured business unit accountability for achieving forecast
project returns. The systems staff needed to be increased substantially
and experienced mid-level management needed to be hired. Formal
systems for developing project requirements, testing software releases,
and guaranteeing service levels needed to be developed and enforced.
The first step focused on setting up a regular process
for business unit sponsorship and review of existing and proposed
projects. Projects without business sponsorship were cancelled.
The review process required each business sponsor to develop the
business case, and the review committee chose projects based on
a combination of factors including overall returns, market demands,
and projected timelines. Simultaneously, the IT team was restructured
with dedicated business unit liaisons, formal development and testing
procedures, and usage charge back systems.
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Within eighteen months the IT department
advanced from delivering two software implementations per
year to delivering twenty five per year. Network enhancement
turnaround times improved from three weeks to two days, and
network availability increased from 85% to 99%. The business
unit saw mortgage processing times reduced from 48 days per
loan to 21 days per loan while simultaneously increasing new
loan processing volume nearly tenfold.
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