FINANCE PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Financial Services Consulting From Fractal Systems
How To Manage Finance Projects?
Many businesses ask what is agile scrum? Agile project management has a great deal to offer financial institutions. It introduces an improved way for teams to work together, with an iterative approach to results and better communication.
Agile has particular relevance in financial services – with complex projects or product development, fast-paced competition, and strong regulation.
Scrum in Finance Project Management
The Scrum framework is the leading implementation methodology for Agile techniques. It has been in use for over 25 years across many industries. It has a particular association with software development, but it is appropriate and well-used with any large or complex project.
Agile techniques reflect the changing nature of companies today. They present a flexible way to deliver improved results, with a better way to handle changing requirements and scope.
In many cases, financial institutions have held back somewhat from adopting such new frameworks. As an industry that is heavily regulated and reliant on secure and proven approaches, it can often be more traditional than other industries. This has changed, though, as the industry has evolved. Today, the financial services sector needs to move quickly in an increasingly competitive environment, and Scrum can help greatly here.
Digitalisation of Financial Services
There is no doubt that financial services have seen huge increases in digital services in recent years. All areas – including banking, hedge funds, insurance, and asset management – need to innovate with digital products to stay competitive. The rapid fise in fintech has increased options and competition.
Scrum will help ensure that digital products meet customer requirements. Teams are more focused on increasing the value of products delivered – rather than on a fixed set of requirements or a rigid team structure. Improving customer satisfaction is increasingly important as competition increases and the range of services offered widens.
Cutting the Red Tape
Another area of finance project management to benefit from an Agile approach is compliance and regulation. All industries are regulated to some extent, but this is particularly relevant in financial services.
Projects in this area can benefit from the incremental approach, where complete requirements or standards are often not known at the outset. Regulation can also change frequently and quickly, suiting the Agile Scrum approach well.
Financial Services Benefit from Agile & Scrum
Smaller companies or financial services providers may be able to achieve a full, enterprise-wide Agile transformation. Larger financial institutions will generally only implement Agile or Scrum techniques in some areas. Either way, changing the approach to complex projects can deliver significant results.
Research from consultancy McKinsey has shown that Agile techniques can improve customer satisfaction by up to 30%. Companies as well can experience a 30% to 50% improvement in operational performance.
Choosing the Right Training
There are plenty of training courses that can help understand and implement Scrum for finance project management. Scrum training is the best way to equip teams to work on Agile projects.
- To understand Agile benefits and transformation, consider the Professional agile leadership essentials course (PAL E).
- Applying professional scrum (APS) training introduces the Scrum framework and shows its power over traditional approaches to project or product development.
- Tailored training for software development is available through the Applying professional Scrum for software development course (APS – SD).
- Scaled Professional Scrum (SPS) training shows to expand techniques to larger projects.