• 
  Review the environmental assessment
• 
  Agree on the analysis to make your judgements as a team
• 
  Interpret the information you have gathered

Think about the different areas identified in the environmental assessment and determine which areas should participate and why

• Business Innovations
• Compliance
• Finance
• IT
• Legal
• Lending
• Marketing
• Operations
• Product Management
• Risk
• Sales
• Training
• Treasury Management

_{* This list may not be all inclusive. Look within your own organization to determine what is appropriate.}

• Determine who will take the lead in implementing the strategy
• Decide the roles and responsibilities of team participants
• Make sure team members have the right level of authority and subject matter expertise
• Obtain executive management buy-in and/or participation as appropriate for your organization
• Agree upon team expectations, determine how the team will be held accountable, and communicate the process and reporting methods within the team and to executive management
• Develop a project charter to encourage team discipline.(link to sample of charter)

• Assess the marketplace and competitive analysis (SWOT)
• Set the landscape

• Articulate internal needs and the needs of both current and targeted customers

  • What are your organization’s current and future needs?
  • Who are your current customers and what are their current and future needs?
  • Who are the new customers your organization wants to attract and what are their current and future needs?

  • Questions to consider

    • What are you doing today with existing payment systems?
    • If you have a payments strategy already, how will faster payments fit in?
  • Consider if your organization’s payments are outgoing versus incoming (payables and steps receivables/ODFI and RDFI)

• Determine to incorporate faster payments (or not)

• The benefits and opportunities in moving forward:

  • Be relevant and competitive
  • Retain current audience and grow new base
  • Potential new products
  • Operational efficiencies
  • Be ready to launch faster payments when needed
  • Better ability to serve specific use cases
  • Stay central to your customers' payment needs

• What are the consequences if your organization does not change?
• Reactive response
• Reputation risk
• Start now because it takes time to be ready for market
• Your competitors won’t wait
• New types of competitors
• Keep up with the times and the evolving customer base
• Most likely won't continue to grow deposit base, and may lose it entirely
• Customer base and/or industry may ask why your organization is not able to keep up with fintechs or other financial institutions
• Competitors might go beyond traditional FIs, online FIs, Fintechs, etc.

• Where does your organization want to go next?

  • Solutions you want to support and offer to your customers
  • Functional business requirements
  • Timeline and milestones
  • Identify success criteria and metrics to evaluate strategy

• Engage vendor on available offerings

  • Consider other vendors if necessary
• Consider costs. Is it less expensive to buy versus build?

• Consider timing. Is it faster to use existing versus building?

  • Evaluate timing considerations. Even if your organization is not acting right now, lead time is still needed

• How does your organization get ready to offer faster payments?
• Tighten up policies and procedures
• Review faster trends

• Solutions your organization wants to support and offer to your customers
• How you will execute given inputs and considerations identified earlier
• Timeline and milestones
• Identify success criteria and metrics to evaluate strategy
• Short and long-term actions