“The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd, is to do an outstanding job with information” – Bill Gates
As organisations expand, communications between teams and departments become more and more difficult. Adopting the agile methodology provides companies with a different mindset of dealing with information. Communication no longer plays out like Chinese whispers as messages are broadcast to all relevant parties, removing unnecessary bottlenecks and delivering business value through product success and customer satisfaction.
Why agile is chosen over other project management methodologies
When you have spent so much time within your own department, it’s easy to get lost in daily routine and lose sight of the bigger picture.
A team with the right people that functions under agile project management can help you keep track of the bigger picture and ensure that information flows quickly and accurately. Having a diverse range of experts to draw on empowers the whole team to clarify the project outcome, action plan and resource planning with correct information in the shortest amount of time.
Agile also promotes teamwork. No one person can know or do it all. When the team owns the outcomes for the project and are held accountable for deliverables as one, it fosters a team spirit that drives people to improve together every day to achieve better outcomes.
The influence of agile at ELMO
Agile project management has greatly improved the way projects are managed and delivered at ELMO.
A great example of this is the product committee in ELMO’s Payroll and HRC.
In the old days, product managers would gather feedback from other business units, write the business requirements and then hand them over to the R&D team for development. There was limited transparency in this process – the business was never sure about what would be delivered while the R&D team did not have access to any real-time feedback during the development phase.
The product committee has significantly sped up the information flow and improved transparency. Representatives from different business units get to form the project plan at the beginning and they review all outcomes together.
Agile project management has transformed the way we work at ELMO. We need fewer handovers, and information such as client expectations, industry best practices and project progress are communicated accurately across teams. Less Chinese whispers, more transparency.
If you’re interested in joining our agile project team at ELMO, check out our jobs or get in touch with ELMO’s talent acquisition team via email on [email protected].
