Summary

PGGM is working on improving strategy execution with a multidisciplinary change team, to increase transparency and sharpen decision-making, so that the organization adds more and more value. Prowareness Xeleron supported PGGM Pensioenbeheer in 2023 for 6 months in improving strategy execution.

About PGGM

PGGM pension management provides the administration of and communication about pensions of various funds, such as Healthcare & Welfare (PFZW), BPF Schilders, Stichting Pensioenfonds voor Personeelsdiensten (StiPP) and from 1 July also for Metal & Technology (PMT) and BpfK (Merchant Navy). As of 1 July, PGGM will manage a total of 5,5 million pensions.

PGGM also provides other services, such as asset management for Healthcare & Welfare (for PFZW).

Together with APG, PGGM is one of the two largest pension implementation organisations in the Netherlands.

From strategy to realization in 5 steps
The Strategy Execution Team designs a working method that summarizes the logic from strategy to realization in 5 steps.

The challenge and approach

The strategy of PGGM was drawn up together with the funds. Important pillars in the strategy are excellent and personal customer service at appropriate costs, the transition to the new pension scheme and the arrival of the PMT fund to the PGGM systems and then the integration of MN in PGGM. Due to these ambitious objectives, complexity and also deadlines, maximum value creation is crucial.

PGGM pension management has approximately 25 multidisciplinary agile teams that are substantively managed by a Product Owner. The teams have a DevOps responsibility and are mainly organized by applications. The applications are the enabler for the customer journeys, along which PGGM Pension Management is organized.

From Pensioenbeheer, the Strategy Execution Team was set up under the direction of one of the directors. In addition to portfolio management, information management and strategy, various roles in the organization such as product owner, agile enabler and delivery management are also represented. Prowareness Xeleron was asked to strengthen this team because of its experience with Agile Portfolio Management and brought external expertise to the organization. Based on quarterly goals, a kanban board and a weekly sprint rhythm, the strategy execution team introduced the changes.

1. From strategy to theme: Based on the strategy and agreements with the pension funds, four strategic themes have been formulated to provide direction for long-term developments and improvements. These are transition to the new pension scheme, Multiclient pension management service, Future-proof, sustainable and safe IT and Excellent and personal customer service.
2. From theme to OKRs: Objectives and key results (OKRs) have been formulated for 2030 and 2026 per theme. Using these ensures that the change is focused on contributing to valuable goals. In this way, progress on the realization of the strategy can be shared both internally and externally.
3. From OKRs to initiatives: The OKRs are the basis for the (strategic) initiatives in the portfolio (and in AzureDevOps). Initiatives are topics that are of strategic importance, often require multiple teams and have a relatively long lead time. In the analysis phase, the initiatives are split into smaller units of work that deliver value: epics, using the lean business case methodology. These units of work are divided across teams and in time using roadmaps.
4. From initiatives to planning: The OKRs for the coming quarter are determined and the work is prioritized based on that. Teams plan which epics will be tackled and specify this in features and stories. The quarterly planning meeting is an important event to finalize the plans and align dependencies. All initiatives, epics and user stories are placed in Azure DevOps in a standardized way. The data quality of this is essential to also manage the realized and to be realized value based on data. The link from strategy to user story ensures that all team members know increasingly better how they contribute to the strategy. In Azure DevOps we also look ahead in the short term (sprint and quarter) and the medium term (6Q).
5. From planning to realization: Teams realize the change in IT and business processes and add value and realize parts of the strategy. We show this by means of reviews and a big demo once a quarter.

Transformation

With the strategy execution trajectory, further steps have been taken in the professionalization of portfolio management. This is a complex operation: change affects many roles and is crucial in realizing the strategy. It requires steering on value within the entire organization, introducing transparency, making choices, MVP thinking and adjusting short-cycle plans based on new insights or realization.

Key success factors are transparency and ownership. Transparency is partly created by the broad use of the right tools: in Azure DevOps, one version of the truth can be found, from initiative to Product Backlog Increment. This transparency forces an owner to be appointed for each item. At the quarterly planning meeting, we paid extra attention to this by having colleagues literally 'take' ownership by sticking stickers with initiatives and epics on their clothing. Every colleague involved in the strategy execution process can see how the strategy is being contributed to through the transparent display and can therefore take co-ownership of realizing the strategy.

The quarterly planning meeting has been further developed each quarter, based on feedback from the participants. During the event, management's choices on the priority of OKRs and initiatives are explained. The focus and prioritized backlog facilitate more 'pull'; the teams attract work (Epics, Features). In addition, we stimulated the teams to more actively make their bottlenecks, risks and dependencies for the coming quarter transparent, so that they can be resolved. In this way, the event contributes more than ever to a predictable quarter.

Change approach

Prowareness Xeleron supported the multidisciplinary Strategy Execution Team for 6 months with expertise in theory and market application. This gave the change team a flying start to continue to implement the change without external support and to embed it in the organization. There are also additional ambitions to, for example, steer the portfolio more value-driven and data-driven.

Want to know more?

In this change process we used, among other things, our insights and experience in the field of agile transformation, kanban and agile portfolio management.

• Book Agile Portfolio Management – Henny Portman, Rini van Solingen
• Portfolio Management lunch sessions – Xeleron
• Scaled Agile Framework