Agile Financial Planning
and Management

Introduction to Agile Financial Management

• Introduction to Agility in Business Environment
• Agile approaches to meeting new challenges
• Keys to scaling agile
• Governance and execution
• Governance strategy
• Execution strategy
• Adapting agile
• Adopt agile methodologies
• Foster a customer-centric approach
• Embrace technology: Invest in technology that supports agile processes
• Continuously monitor and improve processes

How the finance is benefitted by applying agile approaches to planning technology

• Increase in Decision Velocity
• Equalize the Data
• Reduces Complexity
• Rapid Redeployment of Resources
• Agile Finance Leaders
• Broader Skillset

Setting up Agile Accounting and Finance Department

• The need for proper planning in the reporting process
• Human Resource Planning
• Cost Centres and Accounts
• Process Mapping Chart and measurement accuracy
• Manual purpose and structure
• Financial authorities and duties

Principles of an Agile Financial Function

• A focus on the delivery of value over the completion of pre-planned tasks
• The breaking down of work into small chunks to facilitate quick and continuous delivery of value

• A focus on continuous improvement through iterative delivery and continuous feedback
• Strong collaboration within teams and between business units
• An effort to keep processes and deliverables as simple as possible while delivering optimal value

Characteristics of an Agile Financial Function

• Scalable efficient operations.
• Transparent accessible data metrics.
• Frequent inspection to ensure fit for purpose insights
• Quick Responsible Adaptation to Change.
• Empowered Capable Multidisciplinary teams.
• Aligning work with long-range business strategies
• Adopting an iterative cadence
• Embracing simplicity
• Working and collaborating visually

The Role of Agility in Financial Transformation

• Quicker Path to Business Value
• More Collaborative Engagement
• Streamlined Risk Management.
• Efficient Course Correction

Creating an Agile Financial Strategy

• Create a statement of strategy that explains the end goal, including the key objectives that an agile finance function should achieve.

• Perform a gap analysis to determine where the finance function is today and where it needs to be.

• Agree on barometers to gauge progress, including urgency drivers that your business must respond to and initiatives it must achieve.

• Evaluate and implement the right technology
• Accelerate the financial close so that results are available sooner for analysis and stakeholder reporting.
• Move to minimum viable product (MVP)
• Identify and communicate significant overarching assumptions that are expected to be in effect, such as levels of business growth and industry disruption

Embracing Agility in the Finance Function

• Assess functional agility:
• Fill gaps: Strategize and collaborate with your leadership team to fill those gaps.
• Visibly support development

Agile Financial Planning Process Stages

• Feasibility (creating a high-level plan to prioritize clients’ most important goals);
• Sustainability (analyzing resources to develop resiliency in the plan against market forces and life circumstances).
• Optimization (choosing the strategies to implement to make the best use of resources when executing the plan); and
• Iteration (staying in touch with clients to ensure they remain engaged in the process, and keep moving forward with goal-setting and implementation).

Challenges in implementing Business Agility

• Resistance to change.
• Lack of Education and understanding:
• Inflexible systems and processes
• Integration with existing systems.
• Resource constraints:
• Measurement and metrics.
• Sustainability

Agile Asset Management Strategy

• Recognize and be able to apply asset management terminology, definitions and principles
• Identify and manage the expectations of stakeholders with respect to asset management
• Become familiar with internationally recognized asset management methodologies and good practices

• Appreciate the structured approaches available for the improvement of value realization from assets

Agile Finance Leaders – What do you need to become an agile financial leader?

• Financial planning and analysis skills
• Data visualization
• Knowledge and experience with Big Data and Analytics.
• Skills to influence your organization.
• Technologies in the cloud to accelerate the modernization of finances.
• Integrated business services
• Multifunctional teams with unique skills to support the decision makers in the organization.
• The creation of non-financial indicators (KPIs) to guide the allocation of capital towards the creation of value for customers and internal customers.

Crawl, walk, run

The key to a successful Agile transformation is approaching the transformation itself using the same principles. That means starting small and iteratively improving upon what you’ve accomplished.

• Train your team members in basic Agile principles and processes
• Start by scheduling routine work using an appropriate Agile-friendly tool
• Establish an iteration cadence that makes sense for your team
• Build planning and retrospectives around that cadence
• Work closely with your internal customers to add ad hoc requests to the backlog and prioritize them
• Rinse and repeat, continuously improving the process