Change Committee Adviser — Banking Agile Stage-Gate Evidence

The mandate

A banking change committee sees frequent agile demonstrations but struggles to determine which initiatives have earned the next investment stage. Teams can show delivered increments while the customer, operational or control assumptions supporting the business case remain largely untested. The standing question is what constitutes sufficient learning to continue, reshape or stop work. This eight-month advisory appointment begins on 26 October 2026 and brings senior programme judgement to that question, without asking the adviser to operate a project office or replace sponsors' accountability for their outcomes.

You will challenge whether a stage request explains the uncertainty reduced since the previous decision. An increment may prove technical feasibility but not adoption; a pilot may show local usefulness without establishing the conditions needed for scale. The committee needs to distinguish those conclusions and price the next learning step accordingly. Existing finance, risk and operational owners supply approved conditions. The adviser will help directors ask whether the evidence supports the requested commitment, not convert sprint completion or a favourable demonstration into an automatic entitlement to full programme funding.

Three days monthly cover stage-paper review, a sponsor discussion and a written chair briefing. The same retainer also pays for the quarterly change-committee session, outside the three monthly working days; extra workshops need prior agreement. Complete requests receive a substantive view within four business days, with missing inputs stated promptly. A month-eight chair proposal can lead only to a separately documented term lasting at most twelve months, authorised by the change committee after the new scope, reserved days and retainer have been agreed. Up to three other non-competing commitments may coexist, provided the reserved review time and response window remain demonstrable during the committee's decision periods.

There is no line authority over project or agile teams, and the adviser carries no executive responsibility for programme delivery, funding approval or operational adoption. Directors make stage decisions; sponsors and delivery managers execute them. No fiduciary office or directorship is offered. Current work for an implementation supplier, a reviewed programme or a competing banking change sponsor must be disclosed before access. The chair determines recusals or information restrictions, and material unresolved conflicts prevent continuation. The fee is not linked to approval of a stage or advocacy for a supplier's preferred implementation path.

What you will own

• Challenge each stage request against the uncertainty it claims to reduce, asking whether delivered increments establish technical feasibility, operating usefulness or scalable adoption rather than treating those conclusions as equivalent.
• Test pilot evidence for selection and operating conditions, pressing sponsors to identify what must remain true when the initiative expands beyond the supportive team or controlled setting used in discovery.
• Shape committee questions about the next learning investment, helping directors compare a bounded experiment with a full implementation commitment when consequential business assumptions are still unresolved.
• Review benefit narratives for evidence of real adoption and changed operating behaviour, distinguishing a demonstrated capability from a value claim that still depends on later managerial action.
• Press programme owners on stop and reshape conditions agreed at the previous stage, preserving their relevance when delivery enthusiasm or sunk expenditure makes continuation appear inevitable.
• Recommend a concise stage decision record covering evidence, conditions and accountable follow-up, leaving funding approval and execution with the existing committee and sponsors rather than the advisory retainer.
• Counsel the chair on methodology tensions where agile teams and formal governance use different meanings of completion, seeking practical decision evidence without imposing a universal project-management ritual.

Candidate qualifications

• Describe a staged change decision where the delivered work did not establish the business assumption needed for the next commitment. Explain the evidence you challenged, the further learning proposed and how the sponsor or committee changed its choice. The required contribution is consequential programme judgement, not simply the observation that an agile team had not prepared a traditional project plan.
• Bring 18–22 years in banking or financial-services change, with substantial VP, programme or cross-functional leadership. Applied Prince2 and agile-delivery experience should let you distinguish useful governance from unnecessary ceremony. Show how you worked across those disciplines under real investment pressure, retaining accountable stage decisions while allowing delivery teams to learn and revise an emerging solution.
• Evidence senior stakeholder influence without control over delivery staff or budget approval. You must be able to question a powerful sponsor's pilot narrative, state what the evidence does establish and remain constructive when directors choose a different risk appetite. Process-reengineering knowledge should support informed challenge of operating adoption rather than an assumption that every technical release creates an immediate business improvement.
• Reserve three days monthly and the included quarterly session, meeting the four-business-day response commitment for complete requests. Disclose supplier, programme and competing advisory relationships through a meaningful recusal process. Clear briefing writing and secure handling of banking change information are essential: directors need an intelligible decision question and learning boundary, not an expansive methodology review whose practical consequence remains unclear.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 13 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-ADV-2026-IND-142.