Designing a tool for agile management in advisory firm X

The FinancialServices(FS) industry of advisory is inter- ested in the agile methodology and its practices. There are two reasons for this interest: first of all their clients, banks, are interested in these methods for their process management. Second, in order to keep up with the competition they need be up to date with new methods and knowledge. The assignment was to look for inter- esting applications of the agile philosophy within FS advi- sory. Advisory X has two main activities: client projects and internal projects. Through an interaction analysis of interviews is found that internal projects are not agile at all. The internal project interactions show that there is a lack of cross competency collaboration, lack of transparent commu- nication from partners to consultants, an individual mindset and a lack of overview. Moreover there is little attention for internal projects, because of the strong focus on direct profitability of client projects. This focus on client work is enforced by the current evaluation system, where mainly is looked at the percentage that consultants spent working for a client. A look into the working hours of FS consultants showed that 46% of their time was spent on client projects, leaving 54% for other activities than client work (from July-December 2015, for FS advisory). The 46% spent on client projects does not come near the aimed goal that consultants spent 70% of their time working for a client. There is no insight or overview on the activities performed in this other 54%. This shows a large opportunity for agile management of internal projects, as time in between client projects is short and tasks need to be done in small sprints. A transparent overview will contribute to insight and grip on these hours. Furthermore cross competency collab- oration and working in dedicated teams will benefit the productivity and quality of hours spent on internal projects. To create insight in these activities, this project has first defined an ideal future scenario. After this a tool was designed to facilitate agile management of internal projects. The future scenario relies on the creation of an internal scoring system with so called “internal project points”. These points can be earned when finishing internal projects within a small team of consultants. These points can be exchanged for learning and development train- ings. This facilitates a dedicated team environment, where consultants work cross competency, where communi- cation between partners and consultants is transparent and where there is an overview on internal projects. The tool facilitates the future scenario and is partly based on existing agile tools, as encountered in the liter- ature review and interviews. It exists out of two parts: an internal project board and a virtual team board. The first is a physical board that provides an overview of all internal projects in FS advisory. The latter is a virtual team board, a team app, that provides overview of ongoing activities and connects team members any place, any time. These tools are openly available for any FS consultant to stimulate transparent communication. Furthermore there is a plan proposed for the implemen- tation and recommendations are made for the tool. The tool is prototyped in the form of a whiteboard including instructions for the use of the board. Moreover there was a pilot set up with consultants involved in the current block chain initiatives to take the first step in using the internal project board. The concept of internal project points will be continued with the advice of testing in small steps, in order to iterate quickly. The goal of this tool is to provide a stepping stone for agile management of internal projects. Another goal is that the tool facilitates and sparks the discussion about the value of internal projects within FS advisory X. The concept of internal project points helps to create insight into the lost 54% of consultants time. It manages consultants time more effectively by providing a stimu- lating team environment, where there is a clear focus, even across competency. The consultants are being valued and noticed for all their hard work at advisory X, including internal projects.