About Guide Investment Broker
Guide Investimentos is one of the market largest brokers, an open investment platform with offices throughout Brazil; they have won important awards and quality certifications. It is a multinational company that wants to offer the best for its customers and is determined to anticipate their needs.
In view of the challenges the market was pointing out in late 2018, they decided to become even faster and offer their customers and partners high speed for their new products and customer service. Quality has always been not negotiable, and for it to reflect on modern products and highly reliable systems, the speed necessary to meet market demands should undergo an assertive and definitive strategy.
As a digital broker, the main interface with their client is the through their internet website and applications. Having a very mature, professional team, the change was necessary, but for the launch speed of new features, products and offers on their systems to happen in a robust manner, a high-impact change strategy should be adopted. This should consider Guide’s cultural features, their team skills, the quality required, and customer satisfaction.
The Scenario
It is natural in a traditional company that the systems, new functionalities and routines development model had been project oriented. Every big change would become a big project demanded by business area that by seeking the best performance indicators put pressure on technology and systems development teams with deadline and productivity demands.
Upon receiving the commitment, systems were developed with a reduced degree of integration with other areas such as business, for example. Deliveries used to take time due to the necessary amount of effort, as it is common in similar scenarios. Deadlines were not always met satisfactorily, as they would not take into account the necessary time and effort. As a result, it generated frustration and rework.
The Challenge
In addition to customer service speed, it was necessary to put all team on the same page and sharing the same pains, needs, and wishes. Delivery of new systems by technology teams should be significantly faster to meet the market demands; adjustments were to be made in real time, and all this with a much above average quality. This was to become a great market differential: turn the entire company, regardless of the area, fully oriented by business growth and customer satisfaction indicators and not by deadlines, deliveries, or part of an activity.
The Change
For this mission Guide Investimentos chose Prime Control, a company that has Quality and Transformation in its DNA. For this task, which counted on the essencial support of Guide’s high administration, Prime Control brought all its experience of more than 10 years in Quality and became the great facilitator in a process called Agile Transformation. “This transformation does not only involve processes and methods, but people, culture and meaning,” says Everton Arantes, Prime Control CEO. “After the diagnosis, we decided on the most adherent practice, which allowed for a really healthy Agile model to be implemented in a few months within a traditional structure,” Everton adds.
Agile Culture based on modern methodologies involves a big behavioral adjustment and a high level of re-signification of people to make the process of change even more solid. A playful format has been widely used by Guide Investimentos. Starting with group dynamics, all the teams involved with product, system or routine conception were put together until the final delivery, also known as “Inceptions”. The different teams were able to do teamwork in different dimensions. “Everyone always comes to an agreement on the best way to do something, the deadline, and also what should be delivered,” says Adriano Bacha, Technology Manager at Guide Investimentos. “As of a quick behavioral reset, everyone got on the same page and respected everyone’s experiences and skills; the entire team naturally adhered to a highly collaborative and fast model.”
The
It’s a continuous model with its activities organized, oriented by several Agile Coaches who accompany the different teams, now organized in Squads. The Coaches are big facilitators of the routine, nurturing people with lots of motivation and experience. “We have professionals working on all cycles, and deliveries that used to take months are now very fast, objective, and scalable,” says Everton Arantes. “We now define priorities together, all areas are perfectly in synch, engaged, and committed to the collective success”, Everton adds.
“Everyone shares the same business indicators such as new accounts and customer satisfaction,” says Adriano. Quality is guaranteed by Prime Control, but not only in the final stages of systems development as in the traditional model, but with the co-creation of the whole, from the conception by the business area, through to the construction and daily use, quality being a natural thing highly influenced by the entire Prime Control team. As a result the amount of errors and rework is really too small,” Adriano concludes.
“A much more united, motivated and empowered team makes much faster deliveries and happier customers,” says Bazili Swioklo, Guide Investimentos CTO. “Today we no longer have a deadline for a given system or design. We have an ever evolving product, with recurrent sprints, and we always deliver products, routines and systems with agility and quality, more complete and useful for our customers”, completes Swioklo.
This work began less than a year ago and the entire culture of Guide Investimentos is already Agile. With the teams formed in Squads, Agile Coach supporting people in a constant improvement of what is already optimum, and quality being part of the routine.