December 16, 2021 | 3 min read
Aligning Process & Tech Teams — Key Ingredients For Innovation Delivery
Mario DiBenedetto
Managing Director
The Digital Solutions Communication Conundrum
For mortgage lenders, the road between defining needed system enhancements and delivering them, is paved with potholes, speedbumps, and land mines. Simply put, operational teams don’t speak the same language as the technology groups supporting them. Too many times grand “transformation” plans fall woefully short with unusable software, missed deadlines, bloated budgets, and ultimately deflated team morale. Advanced technologies are not “Intelligent” out of the box. To deliver innovation at scale, it takes the right combination of savvy mortgage process experts working side by side with non-practitioner technologists, translating functional requirements into actionable technical specs that can be understood by development teams eager to implement cool digital tools.
Aligning Process and Tech Teams for Success
When lenders align seasoned operations teams, well versed in front-line friction points, with skilled systems gurus who understand modern tech stacks and how to apply them, digital automation magic ensues. Consistent delivery of high-quality lending software starts with clear documentation of transaction handoffs from borrower qualification through to loan servicing. Each piece of the process has numerous execution path possibilities, each with required data, documents and calculations determining next step notifications and workflows. When systems analysts and technology developers collaborate in tandem, they begin to translate for each other, creating “a hah moments” of clarity which drastically reduces delivery risks. In short order the combined teams evolve to simultaneously document process optimizations with corresponding technology enablers, unlocking the innovation vault.
Translating Process/Tech Requirements Into Solutions
To illustrate the point, imagine a detailed process flow noting the pre-conditions for income data, asset verification, and DTI calculations needed to automatically qualify a borrower and send the Initial Disclosures. With real-time input from technology teams the process “blueprint” would simultaneously identify the System Event Triggers, APIs, Webhooks, Business Rules, and Workflow Pattern required to seamlessly automate the previously “silo’d” manual processes. As the teams get in a rhythm of iterating reams of detailed system enhancement specifications, skilled Agile software teams, armed with the right tools and methodologies, can predictably translate the specs into user-friendly solutions that deliver the functionality originally conceived.
Next Week in part 3 of this series we will dig into to opportunities to create an Agile Delivery Center Of Excellence
with the tools and methodologies to continuously deliver high-quality software solutions during each Sprint. If you are interested in discussing more today, click HERE to connect with Brimma now.
