Leading the Architecture Center of
Excellence to Benefit realization
YPTO is the daughter company of SNCB and focusses behind the scenes on its Digital Transformation and ICT infrastructure. To position itself as a strategic partner of SNCB, they choose to focus on Business- and IT architecture to form the bridge between business and IT.
Investments were made to set up an Architectural Center of Excellence (ACE) and to define and roll out a Reference Architecture. This transformation program was failing because they were already investing for 2 years on theoretical and conceptual exercises without any tangible outcome and an organization that was being hold back. ACOMPANY took on the crisis management of this program by installing a team of experts (Chief Architect, Program Manager and Change Manager) and shifting the focus towards value creation.
Analysis
The assignment started with a critical analysis of the content of the program, the profiles that were working on the program, the roles and responsibilities, de approach and the communication.
Scope realignment
The program was put back on track by defining clear Objectives and Key results and visualizing them on a roadmap for delivery with clear dependencies between the different projects. Projects that no longer added value were closed or transferred.
Set up Agile Governance structure
To make sure we were able to steer the ACE department (Enterprise Architects, Domain Architects, Solution Architects, Technical Architects) a weekly funnel meeting was introduced. In a Scaled Agile way, the different team leads were brought together and the focus was shifted on delivering the necessary artifacts (principles, guardrails, blueprints,…)
Improve perception Architecture
Because the perception of architecture wasn’t great, we also focussed on installing an understandable framework for everyone (maturity steps) en clear, understandable ‘one voice’ communication about planning and delivery both on the floor and towards Excom.
Deloitte Audit
After our intervention Architecture was audited by Deloitte and they concluded that it was ‘mature, clearly defined and well organized’ where the initiatives addressed important topics and will lead to a more mature architecture discipline within YPTO.
This is what our client is saying about our collaboration
SNCB’s digital transformation is all about simplifying the It landscape, lowering the maintenance cost, responding quicker to business needs and speeding up the delivery process. To execute this from the center of the organization, an architecture center of excellence was created and staffed with senior digital and IT profiles. To streamline this transformation, ACOMPANY was our sounding board to define the vision, the strategy, and the change approach. Once this was defined, they facilitated the execution of the strategy cross departments to ensure end to end value was delivered. ACOMPANY dedicated a mix of profiles (Chief Architect, Program Manager and Change manager) to be able to guarantee impact on every aspect that needed to be tackled in the transformation.
Tim Groenwals
Head of IT strategy, Enterprise Architecture & CISO at YPTO