Bank of England data programme

Challenge

Providing accurate and timely data is fundamental to the role that the Bank of England plays in ensuring the UK has a safe and resilient financial system. The Bank of England’s Data Programme was established to transform data collection by increasing data quality, reducing duplication and improving data coordination across the bank.

The complexity of the Data Programme was being hindered by challenges related to collaboration and leadership alignment. These challenges were exacerbated by the fact that of the 100+ people involved, only a handful had a full-time role on the Data Programme. For the rest of the team this was often just 20-30% of their role and therefore generating buy-in and sufficient engagement was challenging. In addition, whilst there were some connection points between teams and functions that were not working well, it was proving very difficult to get a clear picture of what was underpinning these issues.

Programme

Our first step was to deploy a Social Network Analysis (SNA) tool, which enabled us to get a better understanding of the challenges across teams and functions. We also used the Social Network Analysis to identify those with potential leadership influence across the Data Programme, enabling us to convene the right group of cross-functional influencers from all levels of hierarchy to make progress on critical challenges.

The SNA data also revealed challenges around trust and psychological safety. To tackle the interpersonal barriers we designed an off-site leadership programme, introducing tools to both built trust and psychological safety whilst progressing the more task related issues, including role clarity and execution principles. We blended leadership and coaching methodologies with Agile tools, enabling the teams to quickly get traction and agree their next steps in the workplace.

Client Experience