Published on the 28/05/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
The Commonwealth Bank claims to now have the largest Agile community in the Southern Hemisphere – with its CIO saying it’s ready to “create the future”…
A year ago the poster child of Agile software in Australia was Suncorp, followed by Telstra. This week the Commonwealth Bank’s group executive and chief information officer David Whiteing laid claim to the title.
Speaking at an Australian Information Industry Association event in Sydney, Whiteing said that two years ago Commonwealth Bank had very little Agile capability. Today however he said it had 50 scrum teams and an 850-strong Agile-ready workforce.
“We are now the largest Agile shop in the Southern Hemisphere. If you get the right people you create the future.”
Given the pace of disruption in the financial sector, it is the ability to rapidly respond to changing demands and expectations that will distinguish the bank from rivals according to Whiteing.
He said that he did not worry too much about trying to identify potential disruptors as they were “difficult to identify, they have a slow burn, then they beat you on the head”.
Instead he wanted to create a technology culture which was able to respond rapidly to whatever the market threw at the bank.
“Today we are the tech team in banking with a technology halo… tomorrow if we do this right we will be a technology business delivering banking services.”
Whiteing stressed that this demanded investment in people and culture. He said he particularly sought out people who were technically skilled, but also were resilient and problem solvers.
Asked how the CIO role itself might change over the coming years, Whiteing said that successful CIOs would bring HR skills, CFO-like qualities and strategic nous to the table as technology had to operate across all of an organisation’s functional domains.
“You have got to understand how the business operates so that (you) are relevant; then you bring in the domain expertise.”
He also said it was important to drive a culture of technical openness so that organisations could leverage the best
