Agile development and fast failure is part of a bigger picture

Agile development and fast failure is part of a bigger picture

A recent article in Bank Innovation called Agile Development Has Banks Failing Fast (in a Good Way) by Philip Ryan presents a range of cogent points around the benefits and importance of agile development methodologies.  These include:

  • the observation that the threat to traditional banking practice from Silicon Valley comes as much from the adoption of new software development practices as from new technologies and disruptors;
  • the benefits of agile in terms of delivering rapid product innovation;
  • the importance of being prepared to ‘fail’, ie pivot and re-position; and
  • the observation that ‘fast fail’ does not necessarily signify ‘failure’ as much as ‘hypothesis testing’ – in other words allowing product design/development decisions to be based on observations and facts rather than assumptions and preferences.

All of this is true and salient.

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Payments innovation must engender trust

Payments innovation must engender trust

The other day I was re-reading a post from last October in Bank Innovation called The Case for More Visible Payments by Philip Ryan which highlighted an important point in the looming transformation of payments capabilities: transparency.

Much of the discussion in recent years about payments disruption has highlighted the potential benefit of new capabilities to displace the payment component of a commercial transaction to the background; simplifying the process, removing friction and emphasising the value-adding component of the transaction.

The case in point that is always cited is, of course, Uber. Recent coverage in Sydney of yet another round of outrage over Uber’s surge pricing has highlighted the brand risk associated with making payments ‘too invisible’ In the most recent spate of complaints, Uber customers have complained about fare increases of up to 800% over new year’s eve.

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New Bank of Sydney website launched

New Bank of Sydney website launched

The new Bank of Sydney website was launched on 17th Dec 2015.

It’s a newly redesigned responsive website, with a bold new look that I, for one, really like.  The site also includes an enhanced navigation experience with streamlined menus to give people quick access to the products and services that they’re looking for.

And I have to say that the home page forex calculator is particularly nice.

Congratulations to everyone involved 🙂

 

Building an innovation culture in banking

Building an innovation culture in banking

Came across this very nice post today by Jim Marous summarising results from an Accenture study on corporate innovation.

Some of the key outcomes of the study discuss many of the things we all know to be true:

  • management support for innovative ideas is critical;
  • the need to focus on day-to-day functions often gets in the way of devoting time to innovation; and
  • rewarding a person’s contribution to innovation is complex:  if any reward or acknowledgement is linked to the innovation’s ultimate success then this can have the perverse outcome of discouraging some people, due the the fear of failure.

But there are two other lessons in the article I particularly liked.

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