9JUNE 2019required to make progress when challenges arise. One way we accomplished this was to minimize the number of meetings and material required for project updates. In a weekly transformation update, senior management met directly with the team leaders executing the work. We de-emphasized the use of PowerPoint presentations. Discussions are focused on progress, issues, and decisions. This saved a tremendous amount of time by eliminating prep sessions and reviews ahead of the senior management updates.3. Setting Clear and Focused Objectives--Short- and Long-termIn a large transformation effort, it is important that each member of the team understands the overall objectives, and how their individual priorities link back to them. The nature of large transformation initiatives requires this to be revisited and communicated regularly. Often a long list of objectives or deliverables for a team needs context or reprioritization in the short term to ensure the right progress is maintained. We established quarterly and monthly objectives for the overall program and revisited them each month. Workstream leaders even set weekly objectives. This allowed a clear focus on making progress towards interim steps and adjusting when necessary.4. Taking the Big SwingsEncouraging staff to take big swings requires setting stretch targets, understanding the risks and fostering an environment where it is ok to fail. This is not easy in a meritocracy-driven culture. The challenge is even greater given a massive, high-stakes challenge with implications for the entire company. Startups and entrepreneurs live by the mantra "to deliver big, you have to take big risks." Fostering that environment for us involved setting the right tone at the top and the mechanisms to recognize the behavior. So, our weekly transformation updates always included questions on "what went wrong?" and "what did we learn?" and "how do we adjust?" It helped establish the fact that the aggressive deliverables and dates were understood and bumps or misses were expected. There was always a sense of how do we help resolve it or get on the right track.5. Focusing on the Minimal Viable ProductAs IT professionals, we all want to deliver solutions that are perfect on day one, and that provide as many functions and features for the customer as possible. But when speed is critical, trade-offs must be made. Taking a minimal viable product approach, we emphasized going live with the bare minimum required. In many cases, this allowed us to convert legacy systems and begin realizing the savings sooner. It also helped identified features that were no longer necessary or just "nice to have". Our teams now realize the value of delivering a solution into production faster, and that not every aspect needs to be perfect.Because of these cultural changes, our treasury transformation program delivered incredible results in its first year. Sub-ledgers were reduced by 40 percent through consolidation. Data infrastructure was reduced by 70 percent. Our entire data center consisting of more than 100 applications was moved to a single site and 44 percent of our servers were consolidated. All of this was achieved while delivering new digital tools to streamline bank, payment, and exposure administration and enhanced data analytics to improve company-wide cash and FX analytics for our Industrial businesses. When the entire team commits to transformation, both technological and cultural, it is possible not only to simplify but to take impact and value to the next level. Through virtualization of hardware, software, and services we can drastically simplify how we interact with our systems
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