Author: Mark Woollen

Industry leader helping banks and credit unions make decisions that matter and deliver important programs with Agility.

Change Management Programs Evolve at Financial Institutions

Change is inevitable

Increasingly, banks and credit unions experience challenges related to cost pressures, new regulations, increased customer expectations and digital disruption.  As a result of these industry challenges, banking executives must expect to ramp-up and evolve their change management processes, teams and methods.  Especially for smaller financial institutions like credit unions and community banks, maintaining the rigors imposed by shareholders, members, customers, media, regulatory agencies, legal/risk/compliance teams and, of course, those disruptive fintech players requires prioritization, focus, execution, agility and support.  Continue reading “Change Management Programs Evolve at Financial Institutions”

Digital Strategy – leverage member feedback from branch and contact center

How does your Credit Union’s operations strategy align with and drive your digital strategy?  Credit Union mergers and consolidation has caused the number of CU charters to decrease by 35.3%, down to 5,859, since 2005 (bank charters are down to 5,856).  Undoubtedly, online and mobile app usage continues to increase due to ease of use, efficiency, cost and availability.  The average number of branches per CU charter has increased (likely due to aforementioned consolidations).

Credit Unions should keep a watchful eye on spending.  Staff and expenses associated with running branches and contact centers aren’t cheap.  Member service organizations can, and should, leverage member feedback to drive digital strategy.   Continue reading “Digital Strategy – leverage member feedback from branch and contact center”

The Continuing Evolution of the “Branch”

What is a branch, really?

While I hold firm to the idea that what we consider the “traditional” brick-and-mortar location is not going away anytime soon, it is an almost certainty that the concept of what a branch “is” will continue change dramatically over the next 2…5…10…years…both from the standpoint of a place where customers physically go to perform banking transactions as well as the continuing evolution of virtual banking.

This article from American Banker / Credit Union Journal focuses primarily on video banking via mobile, but that’s really just one approach across a broad spectrum of branch strategy, evolution, and transformation:

Continue reading “The Continuing Evolution of the “Branch””

Enabling Customer Control and PFM Solutions in Online and Mobile Banking

Top Banks are Enabling Innovative Customer-Centric Services

3rd Party personal finance management (PFM) solutions continue to pop up and evolve and the top banks are taking notice.  Innovative aggregation solutions are providing additive or differentiated services beyond our standard banking apps.  Services like Mint.com, Personal Capital, Yodlee, Credit Karma and even other financial institutions provide behind-the-scenes links into your online account information through secure aggregation and consolidate the information in useful ways.  Cool right? Continue reading “Enabling Customer Control and PFM Solutions in Online and Mobile Banking”

Industry Article: The Benefits Of A Mobile-First Website

This is a great case study from Callahan & Associates (creditunions.com) around Citadel FCU’s (https://www.citadelbanking.com/) efforts to improve their members’ digital experience. By way of some context, Citadel is a $2.8B asset CU based in Exton, PA.

I like the overall approach here – not just looking at this effort as a cosmetic website redesign, but taking a holistic look at the member experience as it relates to online and mobile:

Continue reading “Industry Article: The Benefits Of A Mobile-First Website”

Industry Article: 7 Metrics To Evaluate Credit Cards

There are some really great insights here from Callahan & Associates (creditunions.com) – key metrics and considerations for CU’s (and community banks) as they look to develop, enhance, and grow their credit card portfolios:

“Credit card lending among credit unions is growing and reaching more members. To develop a successful credit card program at your credit union, pay attention to these key metrics.”

Continue reading “Industry Article: 7 Metrics To Evaluate Credit Cards”

Agile Adoption, Adaptation and Lessons Learned at Top 10 US Credit Union

Hayden Technology shares common successes and challenges involved when introducing Agile Scrum at a top-10 Credit Union.  Agile adoption is more evolution than flip-the-switch transformation.  Mark Woollen shares how applying Scrum helps teams focus on priorities during a complex and challenging initiative to replace their outdated and unmanageable online mobile banking platform.

Continue reading “Agile Adoption, Adaptation and Lessons Learned at Top 10 US Credit Union”

Your company’s Agile maturity level…

Does your organization practice Agile/Scrum? If you know about Agile, it’s likely that your company is practicing Agile. How’s it going? Some teams are good. Some teams are great. Some teams really struggle with Agile. Are your business partners engaged? Is your team meeting their commitments? Is your team maintaining their Sprint velocity? People are inherently distracted. Scrum is an effective Agile Practice that helps teams focus. You need support from Leadership… Right?

Tell us about your Agile Practice: Is Agile Valuable to your team? Does your team practice Agile/Scrum?

Which Agile concepts are MOST valuable for your Scrum Team?https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BWJMDCQ

Real World Agile: The Importance of Agile Release Planning

Agile is about evolution.  We should expect to learn, sometimes fail, sometimes succeed, improve, observe and learn some more to survive in the real world everyday.  The purpose of Agile Release Planning release planning is to commit to a plan for delivering an increment of product value.  When we “commit” to something as a team:

  • We understand the goal
  • We understand the content
  • We understand the value to the business
  • We understand the plan
  • We agree that we can (and will strive to) adhere to the plan

If we are committed to the goals, to the team, to the business partners, to our customers and to our organization… then we can agree it’s time to get started!  If we try to start before we agree on our level of commitment, then we introduce opportunity for disconnect and missed expectations.

Be sure to enter your Releases and Sprints with confidence and commitment!