Case Studies

Rescuing a Wealth Platform Programme

How structured governance and on-the-ground delivery leadership turned a red programme around in 4 months
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Industry
Wealth Management
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Scale
22–25 people
⏱️
Duration
4 months
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Result
Escalation Withdrawn

The Situation

A top-tier European private bank and wealth manager — one of the largest independent players on the continent, with several hundred billion in assets under management — had engaged a global platform vendor to implement an on-premise wealth management solution.

By the time I was brought in as Delivery Lead, the programme had been running for over 18 months and was in severe distress:

Legal Escalation

The client was actively exploring legal action against the vendor, citing misrepresentation of platform maturity and persistent delivery failures.

Missed Go-Live Dates

Two pre-scheduled go-live dates had already been missed, escalating the situation to board level.

Hostile Dynamics

The vendor team worked fully remote while the client expected on-site presence, creating a communication gap that fed into an already hostile dynamic.

Defect Backlog

A backlog of several hundred open defects had accumulated, eroding all confidence in the delivery team.

Chronic Overcommitment

A team of 22–25 people was operating under constant pressure, overcommitting each sprint and systematically falling short.

Eroded Trust

Key stakeholders on the client side had grown convinced their internal team could deliver better — and were looking for evidence to confirm it.

Root Causes

Beneath the visible symptoms, I identified several structural failures:

No Shared Requirements Baseline

User stories written by the vendor’s business analysts had never been formally reviewed or approved by the client. There was no single source of truth — so every delivery was measured against unspoken expectations.

No Definition of Ready or Done

Requirements entered development at inconsistent levels of maturity, and there was no agreed standard for what “complete” looked like.

No Defect Discipline

Defects were raised in high volume — many stemming directly from the requirements misalignment — with no triage process, no severity classification, and no accountability framework.

Chronic Overcommitment

The team was promising more than it could deliver every sprint, creating a cycle of missed targets and eroded trust.

What I Did

I focused on restoring structure, visibility, and trust — in that order.

1

Established a Definition of Ready

Ensured every user story entering a sprint had been reviewed, refined, and formally approved by the client. No more building against assumptions.
2

Established a Definition of Done

Created a shared quality bar between the vendor team and the client, eliminating ambiguity about what “delivered” meant.
3

Introduced a Defect Triage Process

Implemented severity classification, rigorous quality metrics, and clear accountability — bringing the open defect backlog under control and making progress measurable.
4

Mapped the Product Maturity Gap

Worked with the vendor’s Product team to document every feature gap as a formal Request for Feature, each with a tracked status and roadmap position. The client had transparency for the first time.
5

Created a 'Wartime' Reporting Cadence

Regular, structured updates to senior management on both sides, designed to address their emotional response as much as their need for information.
6

Restructured the Work-Tracking Tooling

Workflows, components, labels, and version tracking were overhauled so that progress could be measured automatically rather than assembled manually from contradictory sources.
7

Closed the Physical Gap

Began spending time on-site at the client’s offices and brought key team members. Walking the corridors, being present for informal conversations, and showing up in person helped defuse the hostility that remote-only communication had amplified.
8

Built and Delivered a Credible Recovery Plan

With realistic milestones, a transparent risk log, and a communication framework. Crucially, we then delivered against that plan.

Outcomes

Within 4 months:

The legal escalation was formally withdrawn.
The programme moved from red to amber status.
Sprint commitments became realistic and were consistently met, rebuilding delivery credibility.
The open defect backlog was brought under structured management with clear trending metrics.
The client accepted new ways of working — including the DoR/DoD framework — and developed a more realistic understanding of the vendor's operating model.

Green status was not achievable: certain original expectations set at board level were immovable and no longer realistic. But the programme was stable, delivery was predictable, and the relationship had shifted from threats to constructive tension.

The Turning Point

The decisive moment was not a single meeting or intervention — it was the first time we delivered a sprint exactly as planned, then did it again, and again. Delivering against the recovery plan, consistently, was what converted structural improvements into actual trust.

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