Generali Deutschland AG is one of the largest German primary insurers and part of the Italian insurance group of the same name. It includes well-known insurance brands such as Dialog, CosmosDirekt, ADVOCARD and Generali itself. Thoughtworks has worked with Generali for a number of years, including as a partner for its agile transformation initiative. Generali engaged Thoughtworks to support a strategically critical digital delivery project for Generali's most relevant areas.
Explicit consent is a prerequisite for digital communication with customers. Generali is not allowed to contact customers by phone, in writing or digitally without documented consent. The KEE (“Konzern-Einwilligungs-Erklärung”, German for "Group Consent Declaration") is therefore the legal foundation of Generali's digital communication strategy across all legal entities. Previously, consent for digital communications was obtained separately for each legal entity and distribution channel.
Generali Germany engaged Thoughtworks to support the build of a new enterprise-wide system for the "Group Consent Declaration" (KEE) for digital communication for different purposes, and to standardize the legally binding opt-in (DOI) process in the core system.
We successfully launched KEE, and the team has grown tremendously in the process thanks to Thoughtworks' efforts. But the fact that Thoughtworks has enabled us to continue to grow professionally and culturally on our own is extraordinary.
The technical challenges seemed simple at first, but dependencies on other systems and strategic changes at Generali led to an increasing level of complexity. In addition, there were cultural challenges, especially in business and test management, where there was little experience with agile delivery models. Cultural change was therefore a key component of our engagement. Here we focused on continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), and introduced "Shift Left” testing with a workable test pyramid (for more information, see Martin Fowler’s article). We enabled significantly shortened release cycles up to multiple releases in one sprint. In the process, the team became a "real team", working cross-functionally, agilely and in an open culture.
A number of stakeholders across Generali have appreciated Thoughtworks' technical expertise and open culture from several agile transformation initiatives since 2017 (see related client stories below). We succeeded in strategically aligning our product vision with the divisional and board levels to align it with relevant stakeholder groups in the transformation systems. Involvement at all levels enabled us to rapidly establish the overall KEE program and product.
An important aspect was to enable the Generali team to develop the KEE product further independently — from a cultural, functional and technical perspective.
