Agile Thinking for Finance Processes
The accountant of the future needs more skills than previously required. There are many more demands on our time – partnering the operation, making data visible and understandable in real time, supporting a sustainable future, managing the ethics of a more complex world. All of this means more time spent on scrutiny, insight and adding value, and less time spent on transactions, reconciliations and reporting. AI may be able to take part of that strain, but it cannot do it alone – or unsupervised.
A more flexible, improvement-focussed, approach is needed to the finance function – this is the Agile approach.
Agile is an iterative approach to work that helps teams deliver value faster with frequent review points. The aim is to constantly streamline and improve processes. Such streamlining is needed for finance processes if the additional demands of the role are to be accommodated, and that means Agile skills of problem-solving, team working and the assess-plan-do-review cycle.
The accountant of the future will need an Agile mindset.
The Agile mindset is more than just skills. It is a thought process – a curiosity about why things are the way they are, and if there might be a better way; a keenness to work with others to explore new ways of working; and a desire to improve things for everyone – the team, the organisation, and society.
There is a phrase often heard in the continuous improvement community – “there is no failure, only learning” – and that sums the Agile mindset up well. It is learning about processes and trying to make them better; but if the new way doesn’t work out, taking the learning and trying again.
The “Agile Connection” community summarise the Agile mindset as five traits:
• Positive attitude
• Thirst for knowledge
• Goal of team success
• Pragmatism
• Willingness to fail
It seems to be that those traits also reflect those of a finance professional striving to be part of a world-class finance function.
“The Accountant’s Guide to Agile” will help you understand what Agile means for finance processes and how you can start to apply that thinking to add value.
Business author and consultant, specialising in performance measurement and improvement
I am a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in the UK and work as an author of business courses and a process improvement consultant. I have over 30 years' experience and live near Stirling in Scotland, with my wife, daughter and Cocker Spaniel. I aim to make my courses accessible and understandable. My courses focus on business topics including KPIs, performance measurement, approaches to business improvement, Agile and Lean. I hope you enjoy my courses.
Chartered Accountant and Agile Specialist
Alistair is a Chartered Accountant in the UK (FICAEW). He works as an Agile consultant and lives in England
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