FTSE 100 Investment Management Company
Financial Services
FTSE 100 | Delivery Transformation
FTSE 100 Transformation: 240% Flow Efficiency Through Delivery Framework Redesign
How a major multinational investment manager transformed delivery from fragmented activity to metrics-driven flow across four value streams.
240% Flow Efficiency Gain
75% Cycle Time Reduction
87% Less WIP
70% Portfolio WIP Reduction
Cross-functional Integration Achieved
At a Glance
Client: FTSE 100 Asset Management Company (multinational investment manager)
Industry: Financial Services - Asset Management
Challenge: Misaligned delivery, fragmented governance, slow time-to-market
Duration: 12-month transformation engagement
Services Delivered
→ Delivery Transformation (Product Delivery Change Framework design and implementation)
→ Governance Redesign (outcome-focused, metrics-driven)
→ Flow Optimisation (work-in-progress reduction, cycle time improvement)
→ Training & Coaching (cross-functional alignment and lean-agile practices)
Key Results
◘ Flow efficiency increased 240% in key value stream (16% → 55.2%)
◘ 85th percentile cycle time reduced 75% (136 days → 34 days)
◘ Work-in-progress reduced 87% (270 → 36 active items)
◘ Portfolio WIP reduced 70% overall
◘ In-progress feature count reduced 78% (85 → 19 features)
◘ Cross-functional integration achieved across architecture, change, product, and delivery
The Starting Point: Strategic Vision Disconnected from Delivery
The firm faced a problem common in mature financial services organisations: brilliant strategy at the top, capable teams at the bottom, but broken connections between them.
The Strategic Disconnect:
The organisation had clear strategic objectives and ambitious plans. Their subsidiary was delivering critical asset management capabilities. But strategic vision wasn't translating into delivery execution. Teams worked hard but often on the wrong things. Priorities competed. Progress was inconsistent.
Death By Process:
Years of well-intentioned improvements had created a monster. Their original SAFe implementation had been progressively "enhanced" with additional processes, governance layers, and approval gates. Each addition made sense in isolation. Together, they created crushing overhead. The framework designed to improve flow had become the primary impediment to flow.
The Symptoms
Misalignment Across Functions:
Teams and departments weren't aligned around shared strategic outcomes. This created competing priorities, fragmented focus, and unclear success measures. Business wanted one thing, technology prioritized another, operations had different objectives. Nobody was wrong - but nobody was aligned.
Communication Breakdown:
Critical information failed to flow consistently between business, change, and delivery teams. Decisions made in one area blindsided another. Misunderstandings led to rework. Nobody had the full picture. Cross-functional collaboration existed in theory but not practice.
Disconnected Product Vision:
The change process was overly top-down and limited in scope. Business-led change initiatives lacked integration with delivery teams. Digital change was constrained by governance complexity. Simple changes required weeks of approvals. Urgent changes got stuck in committees.
Ineffective Change Process:
Without shared and actionable product vision, work defaulted to outputs over outcomes. Teams delivered features without understanding business value. "Done" meant shipped, not valuable. Metrics measured activity, not impact.
The Numbers Told the Story
Before our engagement, delivery metrics were concerning:
→ 270 items in work-in-progress across one value stream alone
→ 136 days (85th percentile cycle time) from start to delivery
→ 16-22% flow efficiency (78-84% of time was waiting, not working)
→ 85 features in progress simultaneously (massive context switching)
→ 125+ portfolio items active (distributed focus, minimal completion)
What This Meant:
Teams were drowning in work-in-progress. Everything took forever because too much was happening simultaneously. Context switching destroyed productivity. Priorities changed before work completed. Nothing flowed - everything queued.
What Was At Stake:
Competitive disadvantage in fast-moving wealth management market.
Strategic initiatives taking quarters when competitors moved in weeks.
Inability to respond to market opportunities.
Frustrated leadership losing confidence in delivery capability.
Talented people considering exits because they couldn't see their work matter.
The Technology MD mandated assessment and modernisation of the delivery ecosystem. Strategic vision was sound. Delivery capability existed. But the connection between them was broken.
How We Delivered: Diagnose, Design, Implement, Optimise
This wasn't about implementing a new framework - it was about redesigning how strategy, portfolio, and delivery connected.
Phase 1: Deep Diagnosis
The Challenge:
Surface-level assessment wouldn't reveal root causes. We needed to understand the system deeply before prescribing solutions.
What We Did:
We conducted comprehensive analysis across strategy, portfolio coordination, value streams, and delivery execution. This included stakeholder interviews across all levels, process mapping of how work actually flowed, metric analysis of delivery performance, and identification of systemic bottlenecks.
What We Found:
The problems weren't isolated - they were systemic. Governance designed for control was preventing flow. Portfolio management was starting too much and finishing too little. Value streams operated in silos. Delivery teams optimised locally without system-level coordination. Work queued at every boundary.
The Core Issue
The organisation needed a new operating model that connected four layers: Strategy (where direction is set), Portfolio Coordination (where initiatives align to strategy and capacity), Value Stream Coordination (where cross-functional teams deliver outcomes together), and Delivery Coordination (where work gets done). The layers existed but weren't connected properly.
Phase 2: Framework Design
The Challenge:
Create an operating model that preserved what worked while eliminating what didn't. Not a theoretical framework - a practical system designed for the firm's specific context.
What We Designed: The Product Delivery Change Framework
Strategy Layer:
Defines integrated choices that shape business direction. Provides the "why" - establishing clear outcomes, priorities, and boundaries that inform downstream decisions. Includes portfolio management ensuring investments align with long-term vision.
Portfolio Coordination Layer:
Connects strategic direction to execution. Aligns investment, capacity, and initiative flow across enterprise. Acts as bridge between vision and delivery. Ensures cross-functional work is sequenced, prioritised, and feasible.
Value Stream Coordination Layer:
Focuses on enabling collaboration across business, product, architecture, operations, and change to drive shared objectives. Aligns delivery with business capability and customer value. Manages dependencies, addresses system-wide blockers, ensures teams work toward same objectives.
Delivery Coordination Layer:
The engine room where teams execute user stories and tasks, manage flow, and resolve ground-level problems. Optimises day-to-day operations, enables continuous improvement, ensures work remains connected to strategic outcomes.
Why This Design Worked:
It clarified decision rights at each layer. Strategy sets direction. Portfolio coordinates across value streams. Value streams coordinate across functions. Delivery executes and improves. Clear boundaries, clear accountabilities, clear escalation paths.
Phase 3: Systematic Implementation
The Challenge:
Implement new framework without disrupting ongoing delivery. Prove value quickly to secure buy-in for broader rollout.
What We Implemented
Governance Transformation:
Launched Change Committee on monthly cadence where executive leadership team reviewed objective progress, funded projects, and clarified strategic direction across portfolio. This replaced scattered approval meetings with focused strategic alignment.
Value Stream Coordination Established:
Created cross-functional Value Stream Coordination teams representing product, architecture, delivery, change, commercial, and operations stakeholders plus UX. These teams met weekly to align and collaborate on work delivering overarching business objectives.
Portfolio Work Hierarchy standardised:
Agreed naming conventions and work hierarchy across value streams and change: Investment Themes → Projects → Initiatives → Features → Stories/Tasks. This created common language enabling coordination.
End-to-End Workflows Enabled:
Designed, established, and implemented end-to-end workflows for Initiatives and Features across value streams. Initiative kick-offs brought all functional areas together using structured canvas to record key information and gain clarity upfront.
Delivery Coordination Teams Launched:
Established Delivery Coordination personnel across delivery, product, architecture, UX, and change meeting daily to discuss blockers, priorities, and progress. Integrated architecture and change teams into regular delivery cadence.
Visibility & Tooling:
Piloted centralised tooling solution for real-time managing, tracking, and reporting on objectives and deliverables across digital and change. Completed pilot on one value stream, prepared for standardised rollout.
Training Throughout:
Conducted high-level training and workshops with key personnel across portfolio on Change Framework implementation. Built understanding and capability to sustain improvements.
Phase 4: Flow Optimisation
The Challenge:
Framework alone doesn't improve flow. We needed to actively reduce work-in-progress, eliminate bottlenecks, and create measurable improvement.
What We Did:
We implemented rigorous work-in-progress limits. Stopped starting new work until in-flight work completed. Identified and eliminated queues at every boundary. Improved prioritisation to focus on highest-value initiatives. Created transparency through metrics and dashboards.
The Discipline Required:
This was culturally difficult. Saying "no" to new work when existing work wasn't complete. Forcing completion over starting. Prioritising ruthlessly. But discipline created results.
Measured Business Outcomes
Flow Efficiency Increased 240% (Key Value Stream)
In the primary value stream measured, flow efficiency jumped from 16% to 55.2% - a 240% improvement. This metric measures percentage of time work is actually progressing versus waiting. Before: work spent 84% of time waiting. After: work spent only 45% of time waiting. This positioned the organisation among top industry performers for delivery speed.
Cycle Time Reduced 75% (85th Percentile)
Time from starting work to completing it dropped from 136 days to 34 days at the 85th percentile - a 75% reduction. Features that previously took 4-5 months now delivered in 1 month. Faster feedback loops enabled quicker course correction and market responsiveness.
Work-in-Progress Reduced 87%
Active work items in one value stream dropped from 270 to 36 - an 87% reduction. Teams focused on completing high-value work instead of juggling dozens of partially-complete items. Context switching decreased dramatically. Quality improved as focus increased.
Portfolio WIP Reduced 70%
Across the entire portfolio, active items dropped from 125 to 63 - a 70% reduction. Senior leadership stopped starting everything and focused on finishing what mattered most. Strategic initiatives completed faster because they weren't competing with dozens of other priorities.
Feature Count Reduced 78%
In-progress features dropped from 85 to 19 - a 78% reduction. This created value focus rather than feature factory mentality. Teams worked on fewer things simultaneously and delivered them faster and better.
Cross-Functional Integration Achieved
Architecture and change teams - previously operating separately - became fully integrated into regular delivery cadence. Dependencies identified early. Coordination happened proactively. Siloed delivery transformed into collaborative delivery.
Executive Visibility Improved
Structured Value Stream Oversight meetings on monthly cadence gave executive leadership team clear visibility into progress, blockers, and strategic alignment. Decision-making improved because decisions were based on real data, not status reports.
Secondary Benefits
Predictable Delivery Established
With reduced WIP and improved flow, delivery became predictable. Commitments were met consistently. Stakeholders regained confidence in timelines and could plan accordingly.
Cultural Shift Toward Outcomes
Conversation shifted from "how much are we doing" to "what value are we delivering." Teams connected their work to business outcomes. Purpose and meaning increased engagement.
Foundation for Continuous Improvement
The framework and metrics created foundation for ongoing optimisation. Teams could see what to improve and had mechanisms to experiment and adapt.
Strategic Agility Increased
With faster cycle times and clearer portfolio coordination, they could respond to market opportunities more quickly. Strategic agility became competitive advantage.
In Their Words
"Agilicist transformed our delivery from fragmented activity to a structured, metrics-driven system of flow. The Product Delivery Change Framework they designed didn't just improve our processes - it fundamentally changed how we connect strategy to execution. Flow efficiency improved 240% because they addressed the root causes, not just symptoms. They reduced our work-in-progress by 70% across the portfolio, which felt scary initially but proved transformative. Teams now focus on completing high-value work rather than starting everything. The framework achieved immediate, measurable improvements and established the foundation for true outcome-led delivery. This wasn't theoretical consulting - it was practical transformation that delivered results we can measure."
- Technology MD, FTSE 100 Investment Mangement Subsidiary
System-Level Thinking
We didn't optimise individual teams or layers - we redesigned how the entire system connected. Strategy, portfolio, value streams, and delivery became integrated system with clear connections and handoffs.
Metrics Driven Transformation
We established baseline metrics before changing anything. Every improvement was measured. Flow efficiency, cycle time, work-in-progress - these weren't vanity metrics, they were system health indicators. Measurement enabled optimisation.
Cross-Functional Integration
Breaking down silos between architecture, change, product, and delivery created collaboration that enabled flow. Dependencies managed proactively. Coordination replaced handoffs. Shared objectives replaced competing goals.
Executive Engagement
Technology MD mandate created top-down support. Change Committee gave executives visibility and decision-making forum. Executive engagement sustained momentum through difficult changes.
Practical Framework Design
We designed for the organisation's specific context, not textbook theory. Four-layer framework fit their organisational structure and decision-making culture. Practical always beats perfect.
Critical Success Factors
Delivery Transformation
Comprehensive transformation of delivery ecosystem. Designed and implemented Product Delivery Change Framework across four value streams. Standardised workflows, work hierarchy, and coordination mechanisms.
Governance Redesign
Transformed governance from control-focused to outcome-focused. Established Change Committee, Value Stream Coordination meetings, and Value Stream Oversight meetings. Created metrics-driven, strategic alignment.
Flow Optimisation
Systematic reduction of work-in-progress across portfolio and value streams. Eliminated bottlenecks and queues. Implemented flow metrics and continuous improvement practices.
Training & Coaching
High-level training and workshops across portfolio on Change Framework. Hands-on coaching for value stream coordination teams, delivery coordination teams, and leadership on lean-agile execution.
Similar Transformations
Facing Similar Challenges?
If your organisation is dealing with:
Strategic objectives not translating into delivery execution
Too much work-in-progress, nothing completing quickly
Long cycle times and unpredictable delivery
Fragmented governance creating bottlenecks
Silos between functions preventing collaboration
SAFe or agile implementation with crushing overhead
We can help. The FTSE 100 Investment transformation required redesigning the entire delivery ecosystem - connecting strategy, portfolio, value streams, and delivery through practical framework that delivered 240% flow efficiency improvement.
Book a free consultation to discuss:
Your specific delivery and flow challenges
How work-in-progress reduction drives speed
What metrics reveal about your system health
Whether your governance enables or prevents flow
We'll diagnose your situation honestly and recommend what's needed.