Hypoport

About Hypoport 

Hypoport is a German network of technology-driven companies that specializes in credit, insurance, and real estate comparison services. Each subsidiary operates with a high degree of autonomy, reflecting Hypoport’s commitment to self-organization and agility.

Since its founding in 1998, Hypoport has evolved into an ecosystem of independent yet interconnected companies, all working toward a shared purpose: to provide financial security to customers while creating a thriving, empowering environment for employees.

This dual mission is what led the group to explore new governance models—and ultimately, to adopt self-organization through Holacracy and Talkspirit.

Key figures:

• 2,000 employees
• 20 subsidiaries, 9 of which use Holacracy
• 12 offices in Germany
• 3 business units: real estate & mortgage, financing, and insurance

Context

Agility has always been part of Hypoport’s DNA. As early as 2005, the group began implementing Agile practices like Scrum and Kanban within its IT teams. While these frameworks helped improve flexibility and responsiveness, they didn’t fully address the company’s ambition to become a truly self-organized group.

In 2015, Hypoport made a strategic decision to introduce self-organization as a core principle across all subsidiaries. The goal: empower teams to manage themselves, decentralize decision-making, and align daily operations with a shared purpose.

To support this shift, the company turned to Holacracy, a governance model that replaces traditional hierarchies with clearly defined roles and distributed authority. But to make this new way of working truly effective, Hypoport needed a governance platform capable of bringing Holacracy to life—one that would offer structure, clarity, and security. And that’s exactly what Talkspirit delivered.

Challenges

• Increasing agility and accelerating decision-making across teams by reducing reliance on traditional hierarchies.
• Moving beyond traditional Agile frameworks, to adopt a scalable approach to self-organization that supports autonomy and adaptability.
• Improving clarity and transparency by centralizing meetings, roles, tasks, and documentation on a single platform.
• Strengthening alignment across the organizationby ensuring every role contributes to a shared purpose and strategic direction.
• Ensuring long-term adoption of Holacracy through structured onboarding, training and coaching.

Why Talkspirit

• As a secure, GDPR-compliant platform hosted in Europe, Talkspirit meets Hypoport’s high standards for data protection and privacy.
• Compared to other governance tools, Talkspirit offers a more cost-effective and intuitive solution  without compromising on functionality.
• The platform brings everything together—meetings, OKRs, tasks, roles, and documentation—into one centralized space,  especially designed to support self-managing organizations.
• With both synchronous and asynchronous features, Talkspirit makes it easy to process tensions, submit proposals, and stay aligned—no matter the schedule.

Implementation Process

• The transformation began with a pilot in one subsidiary, where only the management board tested Holacracy and Talkspirit in real working conditions. During this phase, leaders experienced firsthand how to define roles, process tensions, and hold structured meetings using Talkspirit.
• Following the success of this first test, Hypoport decided to roll out Holacracy across the rest of the company that had participated in the pilot. The positive results were shared internally, sparking curiosity and interest among other subsidiaries. 
• In line with Hypoport’s principle of self-organization, each company was free to decide whether or not to adopt Holacracy.
• For every new rollout, the same approach was followed: a three-month pilot with the leadership team, followed by a gradual extension to other departments.
• To date, 9 out of Hypoport’s 20 subsidiaries have adopted both Holacracy and Talkspirit to support their transition toward self-organization.  
• To support this large-scale implementation, Hypoport developed a comprehensive in-house training program, combining videos, workshops and coaching.

Key Features Used

• Org chart: A visual, interactive map of the organization allows users to navigate across circles and understand who’s responsible for what. Every role, along with its purpose and accountabilities, is documented and updated within Talkspirit to ensure clarity and transparency.

• Meetings: All tactical and governance meetings are run on Talkspirit, using built-in templates to follow Holacracy rules, process tensions and document decisions in real time. 
• OKRs: Teams can create, update, and track their objectives and key results directly on the platform to stay aligned and focused on outcomes.
• Projects: Tasks are organized on collaborative boards, with each team free to adapt the setup to fit their preferred way of working. Shared spaces are created for transversal projects, making it easier to coordinate work between multiple subsidiaries.
• Publications: Internal processes and policies are documented and accessible to everyone, helping teams stay aligned and work more autonomously.
  
• Proposals: Any team member can submit governance proposals asynchronously, allowing the organization’s structure to evolve continuously without always needing to discuss it in meetings.

Benefits

• Improved transparency: Roles, responsibilities, and governance processes are clearly documented, giving teams full visibility into who does what.
• Faster decision-making: Structured meetings and a clear process for handling tensions allow teams to make decisions more efficiently.
• Stronger alignment: IIndividual roles and team objectives are directly connected to the organization’s broader mission and purpose.
• A shared language: Common terms and processes used across subsidiaries make collaboration smoother and more consistent.
• Greater focus: With less time spent on alignment and coordination, employees can concentrate on meaningful, high-impact work.
• Higher organizational maturity: Self-organization is embedded into daily operations, empowering teams to take ownership and improve continuously. 

By combining Holacracy with Talkspirit, Hypoport has successfully embedded self-organization across the entire organization, creating a more agile, aligned, and empowered workplace.

👉 Want to dive deeper into their journey? Read the full article to discover how they made it happen.