The Origo Agency Administration project is a source of great pride here at CBoxx. I like to believe that we’ve played a pivotal role on this ambitious Origo project which is looking likely to become the industry standard way of communicating and managing Agency related changes between Distributors and Product Providers. Standard Life, Legal & General, Scottish Widows, AXA, Zurich and Clerical Medical are leading the way with many more poised to join in including the major Networks and Service Providers. This article records some of our experiences from the project.

Normal CBoxx projects are characterised by a steady progression from start to finish with the minimum of fuss and bother. Our client is kept informed and involved all the way through so that requirements, expectations, deadlines, budgets etc etc are agreed, documented and met. This one proved to be a little more challenging because there was not just a client to satisfy but apparently a whole industry; all of whom were tackling a single problem in their own way.

Our role was to convert a vision statement from Origo into a solid set of business and functional requirements sufficient for development of the service. We then provided key development and testing support and finally wrote the user manuals. The CBoxx industry model of the financial services world was brought into the project and withstood intense scrutiny, which is a relief.

Origo are the masters at providing structure, governance and discipline to projects of this scale and we have learnt a great deal from them. Along the way I met and worked with many great characters with a wealth of experience and strong opinions from all of the companies involved. Some of them have worked diligently at the Agency coalface for years, some are marketeers with a more strategic view, some are real detail people while others are happy to leave detail to others and simply throw gigantic curveballs straight into the midst of the debate (“So what do we need security for?”). In most cases I took on board the feedback but in some cases dug-in stubbornly so that yes, we do need security and the core communication concepts have been retained with just a little bit of sensible watering down.  

The vision was ambitious to say the least so I decided at an early stage that what everyone really needed was a visual concept to bash about. One dark night I sat down after the kids had gone to bed and created a screen mockup that drew heavily on the application of social networking ideas to the management (orchestration?) of common business processes between a large and diverse collection of co-operating companies from FTSE 100 giants down to 1 man bands. The combination of industry model and mockup worked well in providing focus and then stimulating debate and momentum for the project.

Following on from this initial creative spark was a seemingly endless series of reviews held in offices around the country and by teleconference. We produced copious amounts of very detailed documentation capturing everyones’ ideas and requirements then filtering and applying them to the core concepts, adapting them where necessary. Creativity had to give way to graft, application and attention to detail with each successive session.

After a few months the paperwork had built up alarmingly and meeting attendees were turning up with folders three or four inches thick. Some of the more diligent had even found time to read it all and then produced feedback documents nearly as thick -touche! On reflection I think we could have done this better and I am very keen to start the formal use of visual prototyping tools in future for projects of this scale. Essentially, everyone wants to see pictures and screens otherwise they get bored and start to disengage. There appear to be a number of tools out there that deliver the best of both worlds, at a price. Those after lunch sessions with twenty Use Cases left to review could become a tad tedious.  

A working compromise was found though and the specifications were nailed down shortly after Christmas. One of the really satisfying moments of the project was just after the development team had begun work. We’d had a few review sessions and the ideas were starting to stick in the heads of the developers and technical analysts. While working at my desk at Origo one afternoon I  could hear the gentle babble of breakout meetings and desk chit chat all around the office about how the service would work; how it would be transformed from the words and pictures into reality.

Towards the end there has of course been a few late nights, some tense moments and a palpable sense of relief as real people began user acceptance testing the service and approving it as fit for purpose. It’s going to be fascinating to see how the service survives, adapts and thrives out there in the wild and we’re one hundred percent confident that it will. Quite frankly, it was a buzz and I want to do it all again, now!