The case describes how Mike Bracken, the newly appointed head of the UK Government Digital Service (GDS), took on the massive challenge of setting up, from scratch, a centralised team to deliver online public services efficiently online across all of the government's digital channels. This involved not merely overcoming great operational and technical challenges - legacy IT systems, lack of recognition and reward for specialist skills - but instigating deep cultural change and securing senior-level buy-in to make the necessary changes happen. The case illustrates how to approach implementing large-scale change across a highly bureaucratic organisation; in this case, the UK government. As such, it is a beautiful illustration of where agile works well. One key point to note is that, rather than focusing on the specifics of agile working, it demonstrates when agile methods can be a very powerful tool for enabling change. It also illustrates the importance of a decisive leader in getting an agile way of working implemented (and to some extent, risk-taking on the part of Mike Bracken and his sponsor in government). We will discuss the pros and cons of this approach.

Set in 2016, this case describes ING Bank's implementation of a radical new way of working using agile principles. ING's agile way of working has been written up in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review and McKinsey Quarterly. This case provides a detailed account of how the new structure was developed and implemented. The case describes the process of change in ING Bank, from the aftermath of the global financial crisis to 2016. It provides background information on two change initiatives (Tango and Less is More) that simplified and rationalised the bank's activities, then it provides a detailed account of the major transformation that became known as RIO ("Redesign into Omnichannel"). It focuses on the choices made by Bart Schlatmann, COO of the Netherlands business, and his team - to pursue an omnichannel strategy (i.e. where all channels to market are linked together and managed seamlessly) and to build an organisation to support this strategy that drew inspiration from digital companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. The subsequent restructuring into "agile" teams was a groundbreaking move for a company in the rather conservative banking industry. The case provides lots of detail on how this new model works in practice. After 12 months 3,000 staff had embraced the culture of agile methodology. At the end of the case, Schlatmann had to consider two main questions: (1) How to balance the autonomy of tribes with alignment to the company's strategic objective; and (2) How to roll out agile to other parts of the ING.

Set in 2016, this case describes ING Bank's implementation of a radical new way of working using agile principles. ING's agile way of working has been written up in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review and McKinsey Quarterly. This case provides a detailed account of how the new structure was developed and implemented. The case describes the process of change in ING Bank, from the aftermath of the global financial crisis to 2016. It provides background information on two change initiatives (Tango and Less is More) that simplified and rationalised the bank's activities, then it provides a detailed account of the major transformation that became known as RIO ("Redesign into Omnichannel"). It focuses on the choices made by Bart Schlatmann, COO of the Netherlands business, and his team - to pursue an omnichannel strategy (i.e. where all channels to market are linked together and managed seamlessly) and to build an organisation to support this strategy that drew inspiration from digital companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon.