The document discusses implementing a Lean approach in IT operations and infrastructure at BNP Paribas. It describes how BNP Paribas IT Group Production delivers services to numerous BNP Paribas entities with over 1,500 employees and 5 strategic datacenters. It implemented a new continuous improvement approach called ACE to address increasing complexity, need for agility, and cost control challenges. ACE projects follow a 13-week process involving teams, coaches, and sponsors to identify improvements through analyzing processes and collaborator involvement. Initial projects showed significant benefits like improved performance metrics, problem resolution, and collaborator understanding of processes.

1. Implementing a Lean
approach in IT operations
and infrastructure
European Lean IT Summit
22-23 November, 2012
Paris, France
Philippe Laniesse, CTO of BNP Paribas

2. SOMMAIRE
1. Introduction to BNP Paribas IT Group Production
2. Context and goals
3. A new approach within Production
4. Set-up
5. Benefits
6. Conclusion
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3. The IT Group Production delivers services to
numerous and various entities of the Group
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4. IT Group Production – Some figures
Coverage
Workforce
Around 40% of Group
Production services Around 1 500 collaborators
With a similar sized external workforce
Datacentres
5 Strategic Datacentres located in Workstations
France and Belgium 70 000 of the 270 000
# 10 000 servers
# 100 000 Mips Mail
# 8 000 To storage
120 000 mail boxes
# 400 firewalls (France) 60 000
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5. SOMMAIRE
1. Introduction to BNP Paribas IT Group Production
2. Context and goals
3. A new approach within Production
4. Set-up
5. Benefits
6. Conclusion
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6. Context and Goals
The economical and regulatory environment impacts all financial institutions,
including BNP Paribas and indirectly its production units
The pace of changes required by the Businesses to adapt to new economical constraints,
the increased need for reduction of « Time To Market ».
Regulatory requirements are generating a huge volume of adaptations
We need more than ever to master quality, budget, cost, delays and risk with an emphasis on
efficiency due to unfavourable economical context
Increasing complexity of the IT environment
Complexity of processes, organisation (international dimension, xborder requirements, extended
enterprise)
Richness but also increased complexity of applications and infrastructures solutions
Exponential increases of volumes require stronger management of capacity, performances and costs
… leading to renewed constraints:
We need to be more agile and keep in sync with Business requirements, be prompt to implement required solutions
Our collaborators must get a better understanding of their contribution/accountability within the overall set-up.
The enterprise must control the evolution of production running costs and investments
Increasing need for industrialisation
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7. Context and Goals
Passed years experiences
 Development departments have invested these last years on improving their operational processes and their quality
control and have used extensively CMMI framework. Within BNP Paribas, all development units have reached at least
a level 3 maturity.
 As a contributor to development projects, the Production has embedded in Development methodology it own
requirements. The production life cycle processes were enhanced.
 ISO 9001: The Group IT Production has been working on client satisfaction and improvement of quality delivered to the
clients and the performance of its quality management system over the last decade. It has remained certified during all
that period of time.
 ISO 20000-1: More recently, we have adopted the ITIL referential, rationalised accordingly our processes using best
practices and reached an ISO 20000-1 certification.
 ISO 27000: A part of infrastructure is already certified for security management system. We anticipate that in near
future all the organization need to be certified and reach a high level of security performance.
 ISO 14001: A part of our infrastructure services is already certified ISO 14001. We foresee that this will be extended to
most of our Production Services, in line with the emphasis we put on Social and Environmental Responsibility
These methodologies have indeed brought real benefits but they reach some limits
Even if the processes give appropriate descriptions of the activities, they may be sometime too high level without enough
field procedures and therefore look quite theoretical and be quite far away from the reality on the ground : in such cases,
the expected improvements will remain not enough precise and somehow theoretical too.
So even if they are structured upon bringing direct value to the Client, they may not always reach the field and not bring
value to all parties such as the Collaborator. Such benefits may remain limited.
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8. SOMMAIRE
1. Introduction to BNP Paribas IT Group Production
2. Context and goals
3. A new approach within Production
4. Set-up
5. Benefits
6. Conclusion
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9. ACE « Amélioration Continue de l’Efficacité »
Efficiency Continuous Improvement
 ACE: The history of Lean within BNP Paribas
 The objective of the ACE approach is to improve the efficiency of our processes, so as
to fulfil better the expectations and the needs of our Clients. It is inspired from lean
manufacturing.
 The ACE approach started in 2004 across the whole of BNP Paribas Group. It was
extensively used initially within the Back Offices
 The ACE approach aims at streamlining the processes, their interactions focusing on
reduction of delays, simplification of processes, creation of value for the clients in terms
of products and services:
 Eliminate as much as possible the activities which do not bring added value
 Synchronize the flow of information between operational processes (improve
the interaction and interoperability)
 Standardize the processes and operations
 Enable the operational teams to better manage their processes and the
associated performances.
 The implementation of ACE method to Group Production Services started in 2007.
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10. ACE – A new approach within Production (1/2)
 This method is characterised by a holistic approach of problems and
addresses simultaneously:
 Clients expectations on services,
 The quality and productivity objectives of entities providing services,
 The active role of collaborators in the performance management and in the actions
required for continuous improvement.
 As such, the approach forces us to consider again fundamental questions:
 What is the added value of each activity from the Client perspective?
 What are the best operational practices and how can we bring everyone to use them?
 The ACE approach is based on what happens on the field:
 The team leader and the collaborators are actors of the method.
 They realize what happens in their daily activity and progressively take charge of
improvement avenues,
 They get a better understanding of their role and of what is essential and superfluous in
their activities,
 They enter a virtuous circle by measuring, analysing, proposing evolution, modifications,
all bearing in mind their added value.
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11. ACE – A new approach within Production (2/2)
 The sponsor of each ACE Project is a member of the Executive
Committee of the Group IT Production
 This helps top managers to get in touch with the field, to acknowledge the
facts, based on real cases. We do not work only based on theoretical
models.
 This is also an opportunity for top management to clarify expectations, priorities in
terms of operational efficiency.
 This participates in improving the communication between the top management and
the field employees.
 Ultimately, the alignment between the Strategy, the high level objectives and the
management of priorities at operational level is improved.
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12. SOMMAIRE
1. Introduction to BNP Paribas IT Group Production
2. Context and goals
3. A new approach within Production
4. Set-up
5. Benefits
6. Conclusion
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13. Set-up – the projects, the team, the coaches, the pilots
 Each project follows a standard process over a period of 13 weeks with
established milestones and moment of truth.
 Performance management is not intuitive and requires a rigorous process
and specific working methods
 It is therefore required to have experts accompanying the process : the coaches.
 We have adopted a mix of internal (Corporate ACE team) and external specialists
 The projects are managed by Project Leaders specialised on ACE projects :
the ACE pilots. The more experienced they get, the less coaching we will
need but a minimum must still be maintained.
 Each ACE project covers an activity or a set of similar activities typically
handled by a team of 10 to 15 people maximum. This limit is important to
ensure that the coach and the pilot can transfer their know-how on
Performance Management and Continuous Improvement to each
collaborator.
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14. Set-up – The Sponsor, the Middle Mgt, the Top Mgt
 The active involvement of the Sponsor is a key success factor
 The Sponsor must fix a performance objective. When first results appear, it is tempting to
compromise: he must remain committed to this objective.
 He must be attentive to the team feed back, go on the field (he is the one going on site
for reporting and not the usual way around), be supportive.
 Middle management must be handled with special care
 During the ACE project, the Middle Manager is caught in between the Sponsor and the
Team
 During this time, he must acknowledge what happens while avoiding to interfere. He
must let the team take full responsibility of the process of continuous improvement : this
is pretty uncomfortable for a lot of them.
 To ease the process, we have set up a specific coaching focused on one of their future
top priority: problem management.
 An ACE Program Office coordinates all actions (planning, selection,
follow-up, staffing of Project Leader and Coaches ...)
 I am personally involved through the Program Committee and makes on site
visits twice a month.
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15. Set-up – Post project …
 The new management practices brought by the ACE method (daily team
checkpoint, visual dashboard management and PDCA « on the wall », ...) are at risk to
subside post Project.
 The follow-up post-project is therefore crucial
 Periodical visit from the sponsor in the teams (it’s the manager who goes to the report
and not the other way around)
 The middle management must support the initiative
 The KPI associated to the initiative must be embedded in the objectives of the entity, of
the team and at individual level
 Strong communication on realised improvements, on results brought by the method and
uttermost on the actors of these successes. Interviews, flash on the intranet, testimony
in internal events …
 To materialise the productivity synergies
 The synergies and the increased efficiency are followed up in a specific dashboard by
the Executive Committee of the Department.
 To ensure that we maximise the benefits, a global monitoring is required as full
realisation might require cross department adjustments
 Sometime the adjustment is made directly in the concerned team
 Most of the time, full benefit can only be achieved in a larger perimeter
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16. SOMMAIRE
1. Introduction to BNP Paribas IT Group Production
2. Context and goals
3. A new approach within Production
4. Set-up
5. Benefits
6. Conclusion
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17. The outcome
The outcomes of the completed
projects are very significant
Some examples of the achievements
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18. The performance is understood and shared by all collaborators
thanks to the « on the wall » dashboard management
Performance
Problems
Client Satisfaction
Seeing
TOGETHER
Problems are
resolved one
by one
The Process
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19. The team takes responsibility for work on a daily basis
Daily successful tasks
80%
35% 39%
March April May
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20. Actually, the performance improves in a matter of months
Example of a team of
project managers
Delivery
Deadlines respected dates are
better
Example of a team in
100 94 respected charge of application
75% 57 delivery
55
Customer Stocks of requests
satisfaction and incidents shrink
2011 March April May
increases drastically
 Stock of requests  Stock of incidents
Customer satisfaction 120
118
on delays
10 58 64
8 8 7,7
44 114 80
2 Delayed 22 4
requests 60 56
20 5 0
40
2011 March April May Postponed
0 0
requests May Beg End End May Beg End End
June June July June June July
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21. The performance improves at all levels within a few
months …
Nb of Incidents Stock of incidents Resolutions in time
Customer Satisfaction 100
9
93
21
28 30 21*
8,4 9,8 9,7 114 80
49
Mai Juin Juillet 5 0
0
Mai Juin Juillet Mai Juin Juillet
Mai Juin Juillet
L’enquête est effectuée par mail. * conjoncturel
Un objectif journalier est fixé sur le
A ce jour, peu d’envois sont L’augmentation des incidents au tableau des objectifs. Les retards sont souvent dus à
réalisée. mois de juin est lié à MDI. Avec la réduction des stocks, des incidents qui arrivent déjà en
L’objectif est d’envoyer plus de Des actions sont en cours pour l’équipe traite maintenant retard.
mail d’enquête pour obtenir un diminuer le volume des incidents. uniquement les entrées du jour.
retour plus proche de la réalité.
Stock of demands Demands Demands on time Customer demands
postponed on time
96
80
96 83
58 60 82 64
50
20 23
4
0 0 0
Mai Juin Juillet Mai Juin Juillet 11
L’équipe s’est donné un objectif Juin Juillet Mai Juin Juillet
journalier pour la diminution du Un travail particulier a été effectué Il s’agit du respect de la L’amélioration du respect des délais
stock via le tableau d’analyse de pour la réduction des demandes planification et de la date planifiée client est due à la réduction des
production. suspendues via un PDCA. par l’équipe. retards et des suspendues.
Un travail particulier a été réalisé Des retards ont été constatés lors Traitement des demandes au jour le
sur les demandes en retard et les de l’attaque du stock. jour.
demandes suspendues
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22. Problems are exposed on the wall and treated by the
team...
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23. Productivity gains are concretised
They can be significant …
Client Satisfaction Delays Nb Demands
9 80%
8 1.6j
7.3
0.5j 35%
0.5j 0%
June August June August June Sept
Quality : RFT Stocks Productivity
66 4
100% 4
85%
65% 2.5
0 0
Jan April
Jan April June August
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24. In a nutshell ...
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25. SOMMAIRE
1. Introduction to BNP Paribas IT Group Production
2. Context and goals
3. A new approach within Production
4. Set-up
5. Benefits
6. Conclusion
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26. Conclusion
 An approach creating value at all levels
 Inline with the economical context requirements
 It is a tool to transform in depth the enterprise
 A way of handling « simply » very complex
problems
 It is disturbing but worth the effort!
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