Banking — Release cadence cut from 14 to 4 weeks

Client: US universal bank (retail + small business)

Context: Digital servicing and origination

Situation

The bank shipped quarterly and still missed dates. 
Priorities changed mid-stream, tech debt piled up, and releases felt risky. 
Three business groups competed for the same engineering pool, so everyone lost.

What we did

• Mapped value streams across onboarding and servicing; trimmed four handoffs.
• Redesigned teams using Team Topologies—clear stream-aligned teams, plus a small platform crew.
• WSJF to sort the roadmap by economic impact, not loudest voice.
• Guardrails for funding and risk so leaders could make fast calls without committee cycles.
• Flow metrics (lead time, WIP, throughput) reviewed weekly; tiny experiments every two weeks.

Results in 90 days

• Release cadence moved from ~14 weeks → ~4 weeks.
• 22% of low-value work paused or stopped.
• Incident rate down while release count rose.
• Business leads got a single page showing “what shipped” vs “what changed.”

Why it worked

Focus on one slice, visible measures, and decision guardrails. When priorities were clear, teams stopped thrashing.