Guidewire implementation

A mid-sized U.S. insurance organization, known for its personal, auto, and homeowner coverage, began a transformation to modernize policy administration with Guidewire PolicyCenter. Their goal was to streamline operations, reduce time to market, and improve the experience for both developers and end users.

However, as the implementation progressed, issues began to surface — not with the platform, but with the processes driving its rollout.

Challenges

While Guidewire PolicyCenter offered the functionality the business needed, its potential was limited by inefficiencies in the way it was being implemented. Backlog refinement sessions were disjointed, and many user stories were too vague to move efficiently through the development cycle. Even when features were delivered, gaps in training and understanding created friction for end users trying to adopt new workflows.

The organization faced a familiar problem. The right technology was in place, but the people and processes around it needed alignment.

Our solution

To help resolve these issues, we brought in experienced consulting talent through our systems integrator partnership. These individuals offered a combination of insurance domain expertise and agile delivery leadership.

They played a central role in organizing and refining the backlog, transforming high-level ideas into clear, actionable user stories in Jira. Their cross-functional collaboration with product owners and business stakeholders ensured that priorities were aligned and requirements fully understood before development began. Just as importantly, they provided targeted training and documentation to support end users, making sure the features delivered were adopted.

This combination of technical coordination and business fluency created a more unified, consistent transformation experience.

Business outcomes

With process clarity and user alignment in place, the organization saw tangible improvements:

• Faster sprint velocity: Sprint velocity increased by 30%, enabling more work to be completed with greater accuracy.
• Reduced rework: Rework dropped by nearly 40%, as clearer stories and shared understanding reduced misfires in development.
• Accelerated time to market: PolicyCenter enhancements reached the market 15 to 20% faster, accelerating time to value for internal and external stakeholders.
• Improved end-user adoption: End-user adoption improved significantly, supported by tailored training that translated features into day-to-day utility.

Together, these outcomes created a more agile operating model, one capable of scaling with the business and responding quickly to market needs.

Conclusion

This transformation demonstrated that successful digital initiatives require more than just technology. By embedding the right talent with the right expertise, the organization was able to bridge the gap between platform capabilities and business outcomes.

What began as a technology rollout became an operational shift, creating a foundation for ongoing agility, clarity, and delivery excellence across the business.