From Slow-and-Steady to Agile-and-Steady

All right, thank you and good morning, everyone. A big thank you to the Business Agility Institute for having me here today. We are undertaking a huge transformation at Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC). When I think about this transformation, I’m reminded of Aesop's Fable about the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise steadily made its way to the finish line and won the race, and for the last 40 years, we’ve been just like that—slow, steady, and highly successful.

That said, I certainly don’t want to be the hare—falling asleep on the job is not an option! But I also don’t want to stay as just the tortoise. Instead, I envision DTCC as something more agile, like a gazelle—bounding, jumping, and adapting to the terrain. So today, I want to share DTCC’s transformation story—our shift from a slow-moving but steady organization to one that is fast, adaptable, and responsive.

Our Journey: Why We Are Changing

DTCC might not be a household name, but you all depend on our success. We clear and settle $1.6 quadrillion annually. Every time you invest in your 401(k), buy or sell stocks, contribute to a pension fund, or deposit money into your IRA, that transaction is part of our system. We ensure that securities and money move safely and efficiently. Our work is critical to the stability of the financial system.

For 40 years, we’ve operated like the tortoise—highly regulated, extremely procedural, and heavily siloed. Our main regulators include the SEC, the New York Fed, and the CFTC, among others. Given this strict regulatory environment, our transformation is no small feat. But we need to change because the world around us is changing.

Why Change a Successful Model?

If we’ve been so successful, why change? It might seem counterintuitive—after all, if it’s not broken, why fix it? However, as business leaders, we can project into the future and anticipate how the world will evolve. While we don’t have traditional competitors—after all, who wants to jump into such a heavily regulated space?—we do face significant competitive pressures.

• External Environment: Fintech firms are eyeing our space. While they aren’t direct competitors today, they could become a real threat.
• Client Demands: Our clients are facing intense balance sheet pressure and need us to cut costs to help them remain competitive.
• Talent Competition: The battle for top talent is real. Young professionals want flexibility, cross-functional opportunities, and exciting challenges. If we don’t evolve, we’ll lose the best talent to firms like Google.

How We Are Changing

To shift our organization from slow and steady to fast and adaptive, we’ve launched three pilot programs across different areas of the business:

1. Poor Client Satisfaction Scores: This area needed an overhaul in how we engage with and serve clients.
2. Major Technology Transformation: We’re moving from a mainframe-based system to cloud-based operations.
3. Mature Business Growth: We’re focusing on identifying new revenue opportunities and expansion.

Through these pilots, we expected to learn different lessons, but interestingly, the core lessons were the same across all three.

Key Lessons Learned

1. Embracing Iteration

One of the biggest mindset shifts we had to make was embracing iteration. My colleague Maria, who led one of the pilots, faced a team that was overwhelmed by the magnitude of change. They were asking, "How do we handle all of this? How do we re-engineer policies, procedures, and systems?"

Maria stepped in and simply asked, "How do you eat an elephant?" The answer? One bite at a time. This gave the team permission to focus on solving small problems instead of tackling everything at once. Suddenly, progress started happening.

2. Rethinking Cost

Traditionally, we viewed changes as major expenses, but through agile development, we saw a different perspective. One product owner came to me worried about a costly rework. When we broke it down, we realized that 95% of the user story and epic remained unchanged, and only 5% required rework. That shift in thinking—from seeing changes as costly to seeing them as incremental adjustments—was a breakthrough.

3. Setting Concrete Dates

When making a major transformation, it’s easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis. We made this mistake. My team held 50 workshops and went through 10 iterations trying to perfect our structure. Eventually, we realized enough was enough. We put a solid deadline in place and committed to a go-live date. We also assigned names to roles, which immediately revealed gaps but also created opportunities for employees to step up.

How Clients Reacted

Because our clients are also highly regulated, we had to carefully manage communication. The way we engaged with them varied based on the pilot program:

• Maria’s Pilot (Client Satisfaction): She embedded clients into the design process, holding one-on-one meetings and advisory group sessions.
• My Pilot (Speed to Market): Since client satisfaction wasn’t an issue, my focus was on efficiency. We shared problem statements, end results, and key updates through committees, advisory groups, and board meetings.

Our board has been incredibly supportive of this transformation. They don’t just want updates—they want to learn from our experience and apply it within their own organizations. In fact, one board member was so inspired that they embraced agile in one of their business segments, and we’re now working together in joint agile initiatives—something that would have been unheard of just a year ago.

Where We Are Today

We still have a long way to go. Because we are a regulated entity, we have to ensure all our governance processes meet strict requirements. One of our big goals this year is to revamp our governance process—ensuring compliance while streamlining unnecessary bureaucracy.

So far, our pilot programs have been very successful. Maria’s client satisfaction scores have skyrocketed, and we’re delivering products faster than ever before. Based on this success, we’re now rolling out agile practices across the entire organization—a process that will take 18 to 24 months due to our size and global presence.

The Transformation in Progress

We’re not quite there yet, but we’ve made significant progress. If you picture our transformation, we’re still holding onto our tortoise shell, but we’re starting to move like a gazelle. It’s an exciting journey, and I’m honored to be leading it.

A Final Thought

Before I wrap up, I have a quick request from Ram, our head coach. If there are any agile coaches looking to transition into a fast-evolving organization, please reach out to me after the session.

Thank you!