The recent reorganisation of Danske Bank has allowed the formation of a team whose day-to-day work is integral to enabling change in the organisation. Egle Venskuniene, who leads the team of project managers, program managers, and portfolio managers, says that this change has helped to unite project managers from different fields into one large international team, the goal of which is to make Danske Bank’s strategy a reality.

E. Venskuniene leads a team of almost 150 change agents, many of whom work in Lithuania. She says such a name for project and program managers is more accurate in an attempt to expand the traditional notion of the role of project managers and give it much more space and variety. 

“The project profile of our team is really wide. We work on projects for clients, IT, real estate, procurement, banking regulations, and legal regulation and compliance implementation, risk reduction, security improvement, and implementation of new technologies. Our team members currently manage more than 70 global projects, all of which are the largest and most important projects of the Danske Bank Group,” Egle says. 

She identifies Working@Danske as one of the latest complex projects: it is a broad set of Danske Bank Group’s initiatives, including a new (post-pandemic) work organisation model, including the combination of remote and office work, real estate (office) portfolio review and optimisation, the introduction and implementation of new technologies for collaboration (MS Teams, MS Yammer, MS Office 365, etc.), increasing employee engagement and other. A number of projects contributing to Working@Danske is delivered by Egle’s team.

Another very important area of responsibility besides project & programme management is development and continuous improvement of project management practices & governance principles. Portfolio management team owns the whole “mechanics” of projects, from the definition of the project management structure (e.g., prioritisation, application of project selection guidelines) to the development of tools, sets of rules, ensuring that projects in different areas are implemented consistently and effectively.

E. Venskuniene also says that the team is increasingly applying Agile practices, adapting to the needs of the organisation, experimenting. One example of this is a completely new role in the team, involving the application of Agile practices and program management - theme integrators. Not only are these people able to manage large and complex programs but at the same time, they are a bridge between the newly formed tribes and the rest of the organisation, ensuring the successful implementation of the bank’s goals.

Although the majority of project managers, program managers and portfolio managers have solid project management experience and certifications, such as PMP, IPMA, Prince2, Prosci, SCRUM and many others, E. Venskuniene notes that in addition to the documents confirming the qualifications, significant factors are employee attitudes, values, and potential. 

“Project & programme managers work on various deliveries with very different profiles, so we are constantly investing in improving our competencies. We look at experience and competencies holistically and believe that employees improve not only through training but also through daily work and constant exchange of knowledge within the organisation,” the head of the team explains.

According to Egle, the ability to organise, structure work, communicate with other people, help the team achieve common goals, and turn the strategy into tangible results are very important skills that are expected from current and future team members.

Is the constant promotion of change your passion? Do you want to join a global team that turns Danske Bank’s strategy into tangible results? For more information see here!