The Real Issue: How Processes Have Evolved

The question to ask is not “how do we make the core work harder”. 

The better question is “how do we design work that allows the core to do what it already does well”.  

In my last post, I shared an idea that resonates with many banks we work with:  when things feel hard operationally, the core system is often the first place we look. But in most cases, the deeper issue isn’t the platform - it’s how work has evolved around it.

That evolution didn’t happen recklessly. It happened incrementally, in response to real needs. And over time, those small changes added up in ways that quietly reshaped how work actually flows.

The Real Issue

When we step inside bank operations, we consistently see the same failure modes - patterns that accumulate over time, feel normal day-‑to-‑day, and slowly erode performance.

They don’t usually show up as a single broken process.

They show up as friction.

• Work that feels heavier than it should

• Talented people spending time managing complexity instead of completing work

• Systems blamed for constraints they didn’t create

Across dozens of institutions, four patterns appear again and again:

– Overlapping ownership

– Excessive handoffs

– Control stacking

– Exception-dominated processes

Each one on its own looks reasonable. Combined, they fundamentally change how workflows.

None of these are technology problems.

They’re work design problems.

Over the next few posts, I’ll break down each of these failure modes—what they look like in real bank processes, why they persist, and why fixing them often delivers more impact than any system initiative.

If a process feels slow, fragile, or overly manual, chances are one (or more) of these patterns is at play.

👉 If this sounds familiar, follow along—I’ll explore each failure mode individually and what it actually takes to unwind them.