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Optimize10®

Business transformation, run as a method — not a slide deck.

A ten-step, three-phase approach to organisational transformation for regulated service environments — drawn from 40 years of practice across banking, wealth management, asset management, insurance and private equity, applied and refined over 25 years, and written down so it doesn't depend on one person's memory to work.

Read about the book Explore the method Browse the toolkit

Three phases, ten steps

Every engagement moves through the same disciplined sequence — constraint-led, with operational risk treated as a design input from the start, not a control bolted on at the end.

Phase 1

Foundation

1
Strategy & Objectives
A clear, shared view of what the organisation is trying to achieve, and why.
2
Building the Evidence Base
The evidence base and stakeholder landscape, mapped before any design work starts.
3
Inside the Box
A deliberate inversion of outside-the-box thinking: the organisation’s own intelligence, surfaced to validate the maturity model and learn what makes it tick.

Phase 2

Diagnosis & Design

4
Present Mode of Operation (AS-IS)
How the work actually happens today, end to end — not how the process diagram says it happens.
5
Systematic Analysis
Ranking the constraints that most limit flow — not a list of everything that's wrong.
6
Future Mode of Operation (TO-BE)
A future state that removes the constraints, with every operational risk outside appetite closed or escalated.
7
Target Operating Model (TOM)
Structure, workforce, sourcing and governance redesigned to support the new way of working, not just the process.

Phase 3

Delivery

8
Change Roadmap & Plan
A sequenced, dependency-led plan owned by the people who will actually execute it.
9
Change Mobilisation & Execution
The network of sponsors and change agents, activated to deliver the change through them.
10
Review & Embed
Sustained improvement evidenced and embedded into the operating rhythm, triggering the next cycle.

Who this is for

Transformation leads, COOs, and consultants working inside regulated financial services — banking, trust and fiduciary, asset management, insurance, pensions — where operational risk and regulatory exposure aren't side issues to a transformation programme, they're load-bearing parts of it.

Start with the book, or start with a tool

The method is explained in full in the book. The toolkit gives you the twelve working instruments that support it, usable on their own.

See the full toolkit →