The Challenge: Leading Transformation Under Competitive Pressure
In 2016, BigBank faced a critical inflection point. After 24 years of growth reaching €350M in portfolio, the bank's success had created its own constraints. The IT infrastructure had evolved into what we internally called a "patchwork quilt"—layers of systems accumulated over decades that now impeded the strategic vision of becoming a fully digital, automated bank.
The Organizational Reality I Inherited
As Head of Engineering, I walked into a complex set of interconnected challenges:
Talent Capability Gap
The existing 15-person development team lacked experience building modern banking platforms. More critically, BigBank's market reputation as "loan sharks" made attracting experienced technology talent extremely difficult. Our HR team was blunt: recruiting top engineers might prove impossible.
Legacy Process Constraints
The loan application process exemplified the problem. In 2012, customers still visited branch offices, sat in booths with tellers, and completed lengthy paper forms. A loan committee met twice weekly to review applications manually, assess risks, and make decisions. This was fundamentally incompatible with digital banking expectations where customers complete entire processes without leaving home.
Strategic Execution Pressure
We had secured a €5M investment for "Project Nest"—building an entirely new banking system. But traditional software development approaches (waterfall methodology with year-long cycles before seeing results) conflicted with the competitive urgency we faced. LHV and other competitors were already attracting the best technology talent. We needed to show progress continuously, learn fast, and adapt as we built.
Cross-Functional Coordination Complexity
The transformation required orchestrating four major product components (Bank Core, Finance Accounting, Decision Engine, and Consumer Loan product) across internal teams and external partners. Without systematic approaches to priority alignment and workflow transparency, resource conflicts would paralyze progress.
Systematic Response: Building Solutions Under Pressure
The transformation required developing organizational capabilities and systematic approaches simultaneously. Looking back, I recognize these pragmatic solutions contained patterns that later became foundational to the Strategy Execution Framework.
Pattern 1: Strategic Talent Acquisition Through Creative Problem-Solving
Rather than accepting the recruitment challenge as insurmountable, we reframed the problem: How do we demonstrate technical sophistication while making the recruitment process itself engaging for candidates we want to attract?
We developed "Dragons of Mugloar"—a web-based adventure game that tested programming skills through actual coding challenges. The game presented two paths: "Scripting adventure" (backend) and "Visual adventure" (frontend), allowing candidates to demonstrate capabilities in realistic scenarios.
The campaign achieved multiple strategic objectives:
- Created a technical assessment that top engineers found intellectually interesting
- Hiring pipeline filled with hundreds of candidates during the employee market period
- Repositioned BigBank's employer brand from "loan sharks" to innovative technology company
- Enabled evaluation of problem-solving approaches through actual code
- Generated 6 years of sustained value (still used for recruitment years later)
Framework Seed:
This experience revealed how systematic approaches to organizational challenges require understanding the actual problem beneath surface symptoms. The recruitment issue wasn't really about HR process—it was about market positioning and demonstrating technical credibility.
Pattern 2: Product Structure for Workflow Transparency
We decomposed Project Nest into four clear product components, each with defined scope and interfaces: Bank Core, Finance Accounting, Decision Engine, Product (Consumer Loan)
This decomposition served multiple purposes beyond technical architecture. It created:
- Clear responsibility boundaries for different teams
- Transparent dependencies between components
- Manageable scope for iterative development
- Coordination points where alignment became essential
Framework Seed:
This structure addressed the fundamental challenge of making complex work visible and manageable. When everything is interconnected opacity, nothing can be systematically coordinated. Product decomposition created the foundation for transparent workflow management—a core Strategic Implementation Framework principle.
Pattern 3: Organizational Design for Rapid Decision-Making
We established the Technology Panel—a governance body responsible for architectural decisions across the transformation. This wasn't just a committee; it was a systematic approach to preventing decision bottlenecks while maintaining technical coherence.
The Panel enabled:
- Rapid architectural decisions without hierarchical escalation delays
- Cross-component coordination preventing integration conflicts
- Knowledge sharing across teams and partners
- Clear accountability for technical direction
Framework Seed:
This revealed the importance of creating appropriate decision-making structures matched to transformation complexity. Traditional hierarchical approval processes create delays; pure autonomy creates chaos. The Technology Panel represented a middle path—systematic coordination without bureaucratic drag.
Pattern 4: Iterative Delivery Over Comprehensive Planning
We deliberately avoided waterfall methodology (comprehensive upfront planning followed by year-long development before first results). Instead, we implemented incremental delivery:
Finland as Test Market: We selected Finland for the initial launch strategically. BigBank's Finnish product portfolio was small, and Finnish banking infrastructure was dated, meaning automated solutions would show dramatic impact quickly. This let us validate the entire delivery chain early.
Progressive Market Expansion: After Finland success, we launched MVP (minimum viable product) in Spain, demonstrating the platform's adaptability to different market requirements.
Continuous Integration: Rather than waiting for complete system readiness, we delivered functional increments, gathered feedback, and refined continuously.
Framework Seed:
This experience crystallized the value of iterative delivery for risk management and organizational learning. By delivering early and often, we discovered integration challenges, missing requirements, and architectural issues while course correction remained feasible. This became central to Strategic Implementation Framework's emphasis on frequent value delivery and feedback loops.
Pattern 5: Internal Capability Building Over Dependency
While we partnered with Icefire for Bank Core and Finance Accounting development, we retained critical components (Product and Decision Engine) internally. This wasn't just about control—it was systematic capability building.
The engineering team grew from 15 to 40 experienced developers, representing:
- Sustainable capability: Internal expertise for long-term evolution
- Reduced dependency: Ability to respond to market changes independently
- Knowledge retention: Organizational learning staying within BigBank
- Competitive advantage: Proprietary capabilities competitors couldn't replicate
Framework Seed:
This demonstrated the critical distinction between delegating implementation versus building capability. Consulting engagements that don't transfer ownership create permanent dependency. Sustainable transformation requires internal capability development—now a foundational Strategic Implementation Framework principle.
Transformation Outcomes: Validation Through Results
Measured Transformation Impact
Measured Organizational Impact
Capability Growth: The engineering team expanded from 15 to 40 experienced developers, creating sustainable internal capacity for continued evolution. This wasn't just hiring—it was systematic capability building that reduced external dependency.
Market Validation: Banking Technology Awards 2017 recognized the transformation as one of the top 10 global banking technology projects. This external validation confirmed the technical and strategic sophistication of our approach.
Digital Achievement: BigBank became fully digital and automated in Finland, with customers completing entire loan processes without branch visits. The subsequent Spain MVP launch demonstrated platform adaptability across different regulatory and market contexts.
Employer Brand Transformation: From struggling to attract talent, BigBank became recognized as an innovative technology company. The Dragons of Mugloar campaign's 6-year sustained use validated its effectiveness beyond the immediate recruitment challenge.
Strategic Velocity: By avoiding waterfall methodology and embracing iterative delivery, we dramatically reduced time from idea to market. This velocity became competitive advantage, enabling faster response to market opportunities and regulatory changes.
Framework Development: From Experience to Systematic Methodology
Patterns That Became Framework Principles
Looking back at the BigBank transformation, I recognize patterns that later crystallized into the Strategic Implementation Framework:
Workflow Transparency: The product component structure revealed how making complex work visible enables coordination. Without transparency into dependencies, priorities, and progress, resource conflicts paralyze execution. This became the framework's emphasis on visual management systems.
Iterative Delivery Over Comprehensive Planning: Choosing Finland as test market and delivering incrementally taught us that early feedback and course correction outperform perfect upfront planning. This informed the framework's sprint-based planning cycles and frequent value delivery principles.
Systematic Talent Strategy: Dragons of Mugloar demonstrated how reframing recruitment as organizational positioning problem unlocked creative solutions. This pattern recognition—understanding the actual problem beneath surface symptoms—became central to the framework's discovery methodology.
Organizational Design for Speed: The Technology Panel showed how appropriate decision-making structures eliminate bottlenecks without creating chaos. This balance between autonomy and coordination informed the framework's approach to organizational design during transformation.
Capability Transfer Over Dependency: Building internal engineering capacity rather than permanent external dependency validated the principle that sustainable transformation requires knowledge transfer. This became the framework's foundational distinction from traditional consulting approaches.
Executive Experience Informing Methodology
The challenges I faced as Head of Engineering—talent scarcity, legacy constraints, competitive pressure, coordination complexity—represent universal patterns in organizational transformation. The systematic approaches we developed weren't theoretical frameworks applied to problems; they were pragmatic solutions refined under real execution pressure.
This experience taught me that effective transformation methodology must address:
- Real organizational constraints (talent markets, technical debt, budget limits)
- Stakeholder coordination complexity (internal teams, external partners, regulatory requirements)
- Competitive urgency (can't wait years for results)
- Sustainable capability (solutions must outlast consultants)
- Pattern recognition (similar challenges appear across different contexts)
These insights, gained through leading actual transformation under competitive pressure, became the foundation for the Strategic Implementation Framework used today with government agencies, state enterprises, and technology companies facing similar organizational challenges.
Strategic Implementation Insights
What Made This Transformation Effective
Systematic Problem Reframing
Rather than accepting constraints as immutable, we consistently asked: "What's the actual problem beneath this symptom?" Recruitment difficulty revealed employer brand issues. Waterfall methodology revealed misalignment between planning cycles and competitive urgency. This pattern recognition enabled creative solutions.
Organizational Design Thinking
The product structure, Technology Panel, and capability building approach weren't accidents—they were deliberate organizational design choices addressing coordination, decision-making, and sustainability challenges. Transformation requires both technical and organizational innovation.
Iterative Risk Management
By delivering early to Finland and expanding incrementally, we converted execution risk into learning opportunities. Each release taught us about integration challenges, market requirements, and organizational readiness while pivots remained feasible.
Authority Through Credibility
Dragons of Mugloar succeeded because it demonstrated technical sophistication authentically. We didn't claim innovation—we built something innovative that spoke for itself. This principle applies broadly: authority comes from demonstrated capability, not marketing claims.
Transferable Patterns for Organizational Transformation
Organizations facing similar challenges—legacy technical debt, talent scarcity, competitive pressure for digital transformation, coordination complexity across teams—can benefit from recognizing these patterns:
Challenge the Constraint: When facing seemingly impossible barriers (like recruiting with damaged reputation), reframe to find creative approaches that address root causes rather than symptoms.
Design for Transparency: Complex transformations require making work visible. Product structure, workflow boards, and clear interfaces enable coordination that's impossible in opacity.
Deliver Incrementally: Select test contexts where early delivery provides maximum learning and impact. Use feedback to refine before broad rollout.
Build Systematic Decision Structures: Create governance approaches matched to coordination complexity. Avoid both hierarchical bottlenecks and chaotic autonomy.
Transfer Capability Internally: Sustainable transformation requires building internal expertise, not permanent external dependency. Design from the start for knowledge transfer and capability development.
Technical Context
Project Name: "Nest"
Investment: €5M technology transformation
Team Growth: 15 → 40 experienced engineers
Partner Collaboration: Icefire (Bank Core, Finance Accounting components)
Internal Ownership: Product, Decision Engine (using Provenir)
Market Launches: Finland (full digital), Spain (MVP)
Innovation Example: Dragons of Mugloar recruitment game (6+ year sustained use)
External Recognition: Banking Technology Awards 2017 (Top 10 Global)