1. Examine several perspectives
By including several different perspectives early in the project, you lay the foundation for a successful outcome. Business, IT, marketing – the time you spend listening in this phase will provide double the benefits later. This is your chance to turn every stone. The feasibility study will be more extensive, but that will prove beneficial in the next step.
2. Include the most critical competencies early in your implementation project
Changing your core banking solution is not just an IT project but also a business transformation to the highest degree. Here you have the opportunity to streamline the entire organisation and develop and create competitive advantages. The feasibility study is a golden opportunity to work through your processes and restructure the business as you want it in the future. What works well today, and what needs to change? What do your users say? By including different views and competencies from primary groups within the organisation, you create the conditions you need for a successful project.
3. Make sure you include procurement documentation in the feasibility study
When it’s finally time to begin your feasibility study, some time may have passed since you planned the actual procurement. It might be a new composition of individuals stepping into this project phase. Here, it’s essential to carefully review the procurement documentation to create a consensus on how your feasibility study should be carried out. That way, you ensure having all crucial prerequisites in place and lay the groundwork for the rest of the project.
4. Clarify the purpose and goal of your project
The overall purpose and goals are often set long before procurement. When facing the feasibility phase, continually revisiting your purpose is essential. What should we do and why? An overall goal such as: "We want a modern solution where it’s easy to implement new functionalities" is a good start. But do try to break down the goal into concrete examples. Also, discuss sub-goals with your team and when these should be followed up on.
5. Creating a consensus on the goal between management and the organisation
Everyone in your organisation may not automatically adopt the management's image of what you want to accomplish. Those who have worked in the business for a long time tend to have powerful perceptions about how you should do things. You need to be careful so that you don’t accidentally build your old system into the new one. You can avoid this by going back to your purpose and goal and defining what applies at all levels to clarify expectations. Define what has already been decided and what is possible to influence. This will make it easier to involve more colleagues without losing direction.
6. Make a difference between developing processes and adapting the system
The overall goal is usually to create a long-term sustainable core banking solution that’s cost-effective and simple and that can be maintained and developed over time. But how do you achieve this? The simple answer is choosing a standard solution over a custom one.
Here, your focus should be on how to develop work processes and functions in the selected solution. Avoid making exceptions so as not to risk losing efficiency. The feasibility study often includes many conversations and people, which is what change management is about: being agile and letting the organisation be involved in shaping the project – while, at the same time, not backing down from core decisions that have already been made. By doing so, you have great potential to achieve set goals.
7. Highlight complex details early
It’s human nature to want to get started and gain some victories before embarking on more complex pieces of the project. But it’s essential to handle the difficult questions as early as possible. By raising them early, you add energy to the project instead of ending up pressured for time or getting fatigued. Questions that initially seem simple tend to grow in complexity the more you get into them. In these cases – don’t give up. And continue to work until you feel confident that the issue is under control from a feasibility study perspective. "We will deal with it later" usually results in it never happening.
8. Let the feasibility study cover the collaboration between bank and supplier
Here it’s crucial to define what you want to achieve. In practice, it’s a matter of alternating between reactive working methods and more traditional methods. Well-functioning, agile teams often have a breadth of competencies, more primary skills, or several secondary ones. Who will be involved in the project and where you assign them depends on what you want to achieve. It can be beneficial to think about how to divide the labour between the bank and the supplier at this stage to know how you will handle situations that arise. The agreement must be on paper, with the parties' incentives included in the feasibility study. This way, you have the conditions to succeed – together.
Do you want to know more about how our core banking solution from Applicon works? Contact us, and we will tell you more!
