Case Study
Appian module delivery with upskilling of client resources
Digital & Automation | Asset, Investment & Wealth Management | London
The Background
- A growing Asset Manager identified Appian as the target technology for retiring a legacy SharePoint based deal management system
- The system was to be responsible for the management of a sponsor-generated idea through the filtering processes and, ultimately, to the Investment Committee decision making process
- Should the deal be approved, then the system would be required to manage the workflow through to execution and exit, including the documentation and approvals at each stage
- The Asset Manager appointed an IT engineer to learn Appian and build out the solution
- After four months, the sponsor of the Asset Manager approached NextWave about options to assist with the project to ensure they hits their six-month committee timeline
- NextWave were bought in to take over the initiative with one partner lead and one developer to achieve the desired business outcomes
The Challenge
- Ensure that a working solution is delivered to retire the existing SharePoint solution by the end of the original six month timeline
- Mentor and train the original IT engineer and a new starter so they could continue to support the application
- Provide input to the look and feel of the application, ensuring it is leveraging all the latest techniques and is as 'user friendly' as possible
- Provide a robust audit trail for approvals, commentary and updates for regulatory reporting
The Approach
- The NextWave team initiated a sprint zero to fully uncover the desired business outcomes, identify all of the actors involved in the process and the various workflows, and standardise the data that needed to be collected – during this phase, suggestions were made back into the organisation to optimise the deal handbook, potential conflicts of controls and any areas that lacked control
- Key expected business outcomes and user stories were identified to define a backlog of tasks and allocation to the weekly sprints
- A weekly review with the Chief Investment Officer and the customer sponsor helped tracked progress, issues and risks
- Over the course of six weeks, the NextWave team had daily standups with the customer team driving the development forwards, integrating with local assets (such as SharePoint and Azure databases) to deliver the solution ready for usage
The Impact
- Successful delivery of Appian solution with client staff
- Training of existing client staff creating self-sufficiency
- Client Committee timeline was met
- Chief Investment Officer’s primary goal of streamlining and automating manual Portfolio Managers’ activities met
- Successful cross-border interaction with staff globally and specific client face-offs in Zurich and Bahrain
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