Branch Technology Rollout Project Manager Simulation — CIBC

The scenario

CIBC — Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, one of Canada's Big Five banks, roughly 1,000 branches and 13 million clients — still opens most personal accounts on paper. A new client sits with a Customer Service Representative, the CSR fills out and prints forms, the client wet-signs, identity is checked by hand against documents, and the package is couriered to a processing centre. The Branch Modernization Program was chartered to end that. The digital onboarding workstream — its flagship — puts the entire flow on a single branch tablet: Salesforce Financial Services Cloud captures the application, Adobe Acrobat Sign collects signatures, and Mitek verifies government ID. One workflow, one device, no paper. Sylvie Beaumont's Digital & Branch Experience team proved the concept in a 12-branch pilot across Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and Calgary. The pilot reported a 28% drop in account-opening time, and the number travelled fast — it is now in board decks and quarterly commitments. Leadership doesn't want a bigger pilot. They want the tablet in every branch by quarter-end, and they have engaged CGI under a $6.2M contract to integrate the stack and support the rollout. But the branches in that pilot were urban, fibre-connected, high-volume, and staffed by CSRs who volunteered — and CGI technicians sat on-site for the first two weeks of each. The 1,000 branches you are rolling to are not that. Many are rural and run on connections that drop. Their CSRs have opened accounts on paper for thirty years. And the pilot measured simple personal-chequing openings — not joint accounts, not small-business accounts, not the newcomer with a non-standard passport that Mitek has never seen. Raymond Tessier's Branch Banking Network owns the CSR productivity metric this rollout will be graded on, and Operations was never in the pilot room. Your charge isn't to prove the tablet works — the pilot already did that. It's to find out whether the pilot was ever the real test, before 1,000 branches find out for you.

What you'll do as the project manager

• →Deploy the digital onboarding tablet workflow to all 1,000+ CIBC branches within the program window, retiring paper account-opening for in-scope personal banking products
• →Confirm and protect a network-wide account-opening time reduction in the range the pilot established (target ≥20%), validated against real branch connectivity, CSR demographics, and case mix
• →Define branch-readiness criteria and a wave sequence that move branches to the new workflow without disrupting in-branch client service
• →Stand up the training and change-management program that brings 1,000 branches of CSRs from paper to tablet
• →Hold the CGI integration and rollout-support engagement to its agreed scope and the $18.4M program budget

Project management skills you'll build

The challenges you'll navigate

• •Pilot representativeness — the 28% time saving was measured in 12 urban, fibre-connected branches with on-site vendor support and a simple case mix; the broader network differs on all of those dimensions
• •Branch connectivity — Mitek and Adobe Sign depend on live bandwidth; rural and older branches may not meet the threshold, forcing fallback to paper
• •CSR adoption — frontline staff have opened accounts on paper for decades and are measured on speed; a workflow that is slower during transition invites quiet reversion
• •Operations alignment — Raymond Tessier's Branch Banking Network owns the productivity metrics but was not represented in the pilot, leaving the real adoption authority outside the program's governance
• •Case-mix gaps — joint accounts, small-business accounts, and identity exceptions for newcomers were not exercised in the pilot and may not be supported by the workflow as built

Technology & stakeholders

You'll manage 6 stakeholders, including Sylvie Beaumont (SVP, Digital & Branch Experience — Personal & Business Banking), Marc Lefebvre (Director, IT PMO — Branch Modernization Program), Raymond Tessier (SVP, Branch Banking Network), and more.

What you'll walk away with

A verified, shareable record of a completed enterprise project — plus the PMO deliverables you produced along the way (charter, project plan, SteerCo deck, closure document). It's real, demonstrable project management experience you can put on your resume and speak to in interviews.

Frequently asked questions

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