Aug
20
A Very Long (Agile) Engagement
As a partner in a consulting firm for many years, who has just moved to Bright Green, I am all too familiar with the eternal struggle to balance the supply and demand of resources. Life seemed to swing, somewhat rapidly, between a frantic search for clients to sell work to, and a frantic search for resources to deliver that work. The brief moments of balance between supply and demand were rare times to be cherished while they lasted.
As demand rebounds in many markets around the world, the frantic search for resources is ramping up, and the order of the day frm many clients is resources with skills in Agile. Long the mainstay of independant software development teams and small start ups, the Agile buzzword has reached the mainstream ears of business execs who are being asked – and in turn asking their consultants – how can my business become more agile?
For consultants, the opportunity that presents itself when this question arises is greater than it may initally appear. The tempting reaction is to try and stitch up a consulting contract, dive into delivering value for the client, and pocket the cash. The real opportunity on the table however, is to transition away from the sell-deliver-signoff cycle of discreet consulting engagements, to a client model that is based on a never ending, and uninterupted stream of of work.
Sounds too good to be true? The answer lies in continuous nature of an agile engagment. In becoming more agile, a business is constantly identifying ways to improve, prioritizing those improvments and taking them to market in the smallest amount of time possible. Consulting expertise is often a valuable and necessary ingredient to making this happen, and an Agile model that turns employees into Agile Agents who load new business requirements – as they appear – into a backlog that their consulting partner will immediately action, is what is needed for success.
Is this just a selfish way to sell more over priced agile consultancy work and lock out competitors? No. The reality is that a continuous engagement model is not only good for you as a consultant, it is good for your clients who see faster time to market, and greater visibilty in cost and benefit. Those are the ingredients for a Very Long Engagement.
