The Bottom Line
On November 14, 2016, Vancity went live on Temenos T24 after a series of mock conversions and dress rehearsals. The cutover went to plan, with one exception: members began spending against their offline debit limits faster than expected, and we brought the system back early. Ten years on, my most lasting lesson is that the go-live was the easier part. The harder work was the backlog of business-as-usual demand that had been waiting on the project.
On November 14, 2016, Vancity moved its core banking onto Temenos T24. I was there as part of the Vancity team, working as Director of Core Solutions. A decade is long enough for some of the details to blur. It’s also long enough for the lesson to settle into something clearer.
Getting to go-live
Vancity signed with Temenos in December 2010, so by the time we reached the cutover weekend, the program had been running for years, including a pause and reset along the way. The team ran several mock conversions and full dress rehearsals before the real one, and each run was shorter and quieter than the one before it. By the weekend itself, most of the steps had already been done several times, by the same people.
The cutover went to plan. Temenos told us at the time that it was the smoothest go-live they had ever had. I’ve thought about that comment many times since. Most of the credit belongs to the rehearsals.
The following April, Vancity received the Excellence in Customer Service Award from Temenos at the Temenos Community Forum in Lisbon. We were told the go-live was part of the reason, and coming a few months after the conversion, it was a good moment for everyone who worked on it.
The One Thing We Didn’t Plan For
While the core system was offline, debit cards continued to work against offline limits. That’s standard practice for a cutover window, but some members used those limits more heavily than we had planned for, and it was causing unwarranted negative press.
On Sunday morning, Vancity’s CEO came in. Her direction to the team was clear: do whatever we could to bring the system back sooner. We reworked the remaining steps and brought Vancity back online approximately ten hours ahead of the original schedule.
The people
When I think back to that weekend, the people come to mind before the technology does.
The team was a mix of Vancity staff, Temenos specialists and a group of independent contractors. On paper, that’s three organizations with three sets of priorities. In practice, the camaraderie was second to none. Everyone had everyone’s back.
I’ve worked on many large programs since, and that kind of cohesion across organizations and roles is rare. It made a hard thing feel possible.
What Came After
If you had asked me in 2016 what the hardest part would be, I’d have said the cutover, and I would have been wrong.
While the project was in flight, much of the core banking change that other teams wanted had been put on hold. That was the right call; a conversion needs a stable target. But the requests didn’t go away. They simply waited.
When the project wound down, these requests arrived all at once. Every team had a reasonable case for going first, and the core banking team had just come off a long, demanding project. Managing those expectations was difficult, and harder than the go-live itself.
This is the part of a transformation that rarely makes it into the plan, because the plan usually ends at go-live. If you’re contemplating a core replacement, plan for the day after as carefully as the day itself.
Keep a running list of what’s been deferred, and agree before go-live how you’ll decide what goes first. Ideally, your strategy project, business-as-usual and program management functions own that decision and set expectations on approval and timing early. Then the team coming off the transformation isn’t handed a laundry list that’s been on the back burner.
From Vancity to 2Oaks
That experience, and the client engagements that followed it, shaped how we think about go-lives at 2Oaks Consulting. We wrote much of it down in our ebook Transforming Banking. The short version is that a go-live is a single event, and the work on either side of it deserves the same planning discipline as the event itself.
Go-lives are a specialized capability, and they deserve a specialized tool. That’s why we’ve built 2OaksGo, a go-live planning tool that draws directly on what we learned at Vancity and since, and it’s nearly ready for release. We’re looking for a beta client, ideally a credit union or bank with a core banking go-live on the horizon. If that’s you, I’d like to hear from you through our contact page.
ABOUT 2OAKS
2Oaks emerged from deep within the banking sector, where our founders personally navigated the challenges of core system modernization. This hands-on experience shaped our unique approach to technology consulting - one that combines technical expertise with practical wisdom. We're not your typical consultancy. As a vendor-neutral partner, we work exclusively for our clients' interests across banking, financial services, retail, and public sectors.
What sets us apart is our commitment to co-creation and knowledge transfer. We work alongside your team, ensuring that our solutions aren't just implemented but truly integrated into your organization. Our lean, efficient approach eschews unnecessary complexity in favour of practical, results-driven outcomes. Whether you're facing a system transformation, technology upgrade, or strategic shift, reach out to 2Oaks to discover how our principled, authentic approach can drive your success.
