Accelerating innovation without compromising service quality
- Shift Left QA
- Accelerated delivery
- Business transformation
Executive summary
Financial services organisations face constant pressure to innovate while maintaining high standards of reliability, security and customer trust. Moving faster cannot come at the expense of service quality, particularly where members and customers depend on stable, long-term services.
This case study shows how adopting modern delivery practices, grounded in strong collaboration and embedded quality, enables organisations to accelerate digital change safely. The same principles apply across regulated sectors where speed, assurance and customer experience must move forward together.
The problem we solved
RPMI provides administration and strategic support for the UK railways’ pension schemes, with a long-standing responsibility to deliver reliable services to members and third-party clients.
As expectations around digital services increased, RPMI recognised the need to accelerate its digital strategy and adopt new technologies more quickly. However, as a financial services organisation, it could not afford disruption, reduced service quality or loss of trust while doing so.
RPMI needed a way to introduce innovation at pace while maintaining reliability, quality and clear alignment with business priorities.
What we did
Answer Digital partnered with RPMI to embed a new approach to digital delivery focused on collaboration, speed and quality.
We formed a single, cross-functional delivery team made up of RPMI and Answer Digital colleagues, working together under agile and DevOps principles. RPMI’s Product Owner was embedded directly within the team, enabling faster decision-making and ensuring delivery stayed aligned to business goals.
Quality was built in from the outset through early and continuous testing, allowing issues to be identified and addressed quickly rather than late in delivery. This approach reduced rework and increased confidence in every release.
The team put these practices into action through early delivery of a customer-facing chatbot. Regular feedback from users informed weekly improvements, demonstrating the value of iterative delivery and rapid learning.
The long-term impact
RPMI accelerated the delivery of new digital tools and services while maintaining service stability and customer trust.
Continuous delivery cycles enabled faster releases and more responsive improvement. Early testing improved product quality, reducing the risk of issues reaching customers. Incremental delivery ensured business value was realised at every stage, rather than being deferred to the end of long programmes.
Beyond individual products, the partnership helped establish a more modern and collaborative way of working. Teams shared skills, built confidence in new delivery practices and created a stronger foundation for ongoing digital transformation.
How we can help you do the same
If your organisation needs to move faster without compromising reliability or trust, we can help.
Answer Digital works with regulated organisations to modernise delivery practices, embed quality and align technology change with real business outcomes. We focus on building teams and approaches that support sustained innovation, not one-off change.