This year, I am a mentor for the Advancing Professionals Resource Council Case Challenge Competition. The group’s question asks how Northern Trust can become more agile, speedy, and adaptable. The team came across several articles regarding the Agile process. As someone who has only heard this word many times from my software developer boyfriend but has never utilized the framework, I figured I should learn more about it.
Agile is an iterative approach, mostly used for building software, in which the product is built in steps, incrementally. The process is broken down into two-week chunks based on user stories. Teams are no longer siloed, but work cross-functionally. Teams can often manage an entire process, rather than relying on many specialized experts in different areas of a business. Often, teams utilizing Agile adopt a daily standup meeting to ensure the team is on the same page. A/B testing is also frequently utilized.
Agile can be used to non-software products. Established firms should take the time to adopt these processes now to ensure long-term efficiency. One Boston Consulting Group article says that “[Agile] encourages face-to-face meetings, transparency, brainstorming, course correction, and a shared sense of ownership in a project.” That seems to be a great project management framework for any firm!
The article goes on to articulate how Agile teams have ownership over their products, and so they are incentivized to reduce complexity. I’ve never worked on an Agile team (and have never worked on a customer-facing product), but my experience in several jobs has shown that having a sense of responsibility and purpose is the most important quality of motivation. More responsibility leads to greater sense of purpose.