This Federal Home Loan Mortgage company launched an enterprise Agile transformation known as Modern Delivery to strengthen speed, quality, and alignment across its mortgage and securitization portfolios. LitheSpeed partnered as coaches, trainers, and consultants, onboarding over 100 teams, establishing immersive Dojo-style learning programs, and delivering technical and leadership training to more than 1,000 employees. The transformation improved flow efficiency, reduced cycle times by up to 50% on key teams, and embedded Agile engineering excellence across portfolios critical to the U.S. housing market.

Client

Federal Home Loan Mortgage Organization

Market

Home Loan / Mortgage

 

Industry

Housing Finance, Secondary Mortgage Market

 

Offerings

Enterprise Agile Transformation, DevOps Enablement

Challenge

This organization plays a vital role in the U.S. housing market by providing liquidity, stability, and affordability through its work in the secondary mortgage market. To better support this mission, they initiated a broad Agile transformation "Modern Delivery", designed to modernize delivery practices across complex, highly regulated portfolios including Toolchain, Securitization, Servicing, Secondary Markets, and Underwriting.

Key challenges included:

  • Scaling Agile consistently across multiple portfolios and functions

  • Improving engineering discipline and product quality

  • Reducing long cycle times and bottlenecks in large programs

  • Bridging gaps between operations, business, and technology teams

  • Building internal capability to sustain transformation long-term

Freddie Mac needed hands-on coaching, technical depth, and scalable training to embed agility into both delivery practices and organizational culture.

Solution

LitheSpeed partnered with this organization from the outset of Modern Delivery, delivering a multi-layered transformation approach that combined team coaching, portfolio alignment, and engineering excellence.

Dojo-Based Agile Engineering Learning Journeys

LitheSpeed developed immersive 6–8 week Dojo-style Learning Journeys tailored to each team’s context. These engagements focused on strengthening:

  • Behavior Driven Development (BDD)

  • Test Driven Development (TDD)

  • Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery

  • Release on Demand practices

By working within the teams’ real-world delivery environments, coaches improved story sizing, testability, and engineering rigor, leading to measurable gains in flow and quality.

Enterprise Training & Capability Building

To build sustainable capability, LitheSpeed delivered:

  • Technical training to 400+ employees

  • Agile process, product management, and facilitation training to 650+ employees

  • Custom Lean Portfolio Management and Agile 101 training

  • Certified courses including CSM, CSPO, CAL, Leading SAFe®, and SAFe® for Teams

Training content was customized to meet the needs of both technical and non-technical audiences, ensuring enterprise-wide adoption.

Enterprise Team Onboarding & Coaching

LitheSpeed onboarded 100+ teams into Modern Delivery, training them on new ways of working and configuring Agile boards in Jira. Scrum Masters were coached on facilitating Agile ceremonies, while Product Owners and Analysts were trained in effective backlog development and prioritization.

Ten teams across the Securitization portfolio received focused coaching, supported by the creation of a monthly Scrum Master Community of Practice to strengthen peer learning and coaching capability.

Value Stream Mapping & Portfolio Alignment

LitheSpeed facilitated Value Stream Mapping workshops across large programs to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies. In one case, improvements reduced a process timeline from 2–3 weeks to just 2–3 days, significantly enhancing flow efficiency.

A comprehensive Servicing Portfolio assessment further aligned strategic priorities with execution practices.

Operations & Flow Optimization

An Operations team in Underwriting was onboarded to Modern Delivery using Kanban practices. LitheSpeed coached them on managing work-in-progress (WIP), prioritization, and flow metrics. As a result, cycle times improved dramatically, enabling the team to balance business-as-usual demands with process improvement initiatives.

Results & Impact

The Modern Delivery transformation achieved substantial and sustained improvements:

  • 100+ teams successfully onboarded to Modern Delivery

  • One team reduced cycle time per work item by 50% within three months, with sustained results for over a year

  • Process improvements reducing timelines from weeks to days in key value streams

  • Dramatic cycle time improvements in Operations through Kanban adoption

  • Over 1,000 employees trained across technical and Agile disciplines

  • Strengthened portfolio alignment and enterprise coordination

Today, Agile engineering discipline, Lean portfolio practices, and cross-team collaboration are embedded across their critical portfolios. By improving flow, quality, and delivery speed, LitheSpeed helped this company enhance its ability to support liquidity and stability in the U.S. housing market, advancing its mission with greater precision and adaptability.

Download PDF