The Situation
A leading North American Tier-1 financial institution was 9 months behind on a critical legacy core-banking migration. The project, budgeted at $40M, had ballooned due to vendor misalignment, scope creep, and a lack of unified governance across 14 agile pods. Over 200 engineers were locked in integration gridlock.
Our Intervention
Arise Consultants was brought in to triage the delivery. We didn't add more engineers; we fundamentally re-architected the delivery framework.
- Governance Shakeup: We established a centralized PMO tower with strict intake controls, halting all non-critical feature development for a 30-day "stabilization sprint."
- Vendor Calibration: We re-negotiated the SLA terms with their tertiary data-Lake provider to ensure data migration pipelines were unblocked.
- Execution Cadence: Transitioned the fragmented agile teams into a SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) release train mapping directly to business capabilities.
The Result
Within 60 days of intervention, integration velocity increased by 340%. The migration was successfully completed under the newly revised schedule, avoiding a catastrophic $12M penalty from regulatory bodies.
Key Metrics Realized:
- 5 Days to establish centralized PMO governance and triage the bleeding.
- 30 Days to stabilize the architecture and halt critical feature creep.
- 340% increase in integration velocity through SAFe implementation.
- $12M in regulatory penalties avoided.
- 200+ engineers unblocked and re-aligned.
"The Arise team brought a level of surgical precision and gravitas that immediately pierced through the organizational noise. They saved the initiative."
— SVP, Core Engineering, Tier-1 Bank
