Agile project management has been a popular methodology for decades and has been adopted by various industries. In particular, the fintech industry has seen rapid growth in the use of Agile methodology due to its effectiveness in responding to market demands and delivering value to customers.

Sahil Khullar
Sahil Khullar, Agile Project Management Expert; Photo Credit: Fadil Berisha

Sahil Khullar, an expert in the field of Agile, describes Agile project management as an "iterative and incremental approach to product development" that emphasizes delivering value to customers in a fast and responsive way. According to him, the use of Agile project management in fintech allows organizations to quickly adapt to changes and deliver innovative solutions to their customers. Its focus on collaboration and communication ensures that all stakeholders are involved in the development process, leading to better outcomes and higher customer satisfaction.

"Innovation and rapid response to market demands are critical for success," says Khullar who is currently consulting for a fintech company in developing more sophisticated Agile solutions. He points out that one of the major advantages of Agile project management in fintech is its ability to quickly respond to changes based on the evolving market or customer behavior. Agile focuses on breaking down bigger projects into smaller pieces and prioritizing the highest customer needs first. This approach makes it easier to adjust in the middle of product development, deliver value quickly to internal stakeholders and customers, and enable competitiveness.

Sahil Khullar, a Senior Principal Consultant specializing in Agile project management for fintech, highlights that Agile project management can help reduce risks related to product development. By conducting a Resolved, Owned, Accepted, and Mitigated (ROAMing) activity early on with the product owners and development team, potential risks associated with product delivery can be identified. This collaborative approach enables everyone to work together to manage and minimize the impact of these risks on product delivery. In addition, identifying and addressing issues in the early stages of product development can also reduce the development costs associated with rework later on.

The Agile project management approach in fintech is inspired by the software development industry. In the early 2000s, a group of software developers created the Agile Manifesto, which outlined a set of values and principles aimed at improving software development by prioritizing collaboration, flexibility, and customer satisfaction. Since then, fintech companies have widely adopted this approach to address similar challenges in their own projects.

Implementing Agile project management in fintech requires a strong commitment from senior leaders, business stakeholders, product owners, and development teams. Effective implementation lies in several key areas.

"To ensure the success of Agile project management, it is essential to establish a product roadmap and focus on delivering Minimum Viable Products (MVPs). In simpler terms, once the product roadmap has been established, the Product Owner must identify the most critical features and functionalities, prioritize them based on their significance, and then break them down into smaller tasks. This will help the team to stay focused on delivering value to customers and avoid scope creep," explains Khullar who has been assisting fintech companies in developing customer-centric software products using Agile methodologies.

Effective communication skills are highly valued in the Agile delivery of the product as coordination among multiple teams is required. According to Khullar, "Establishing a clear set of roles and responsibilities could provide clarity into who does what in a team. There is a wide variety of collaboration and Agile tools available to help manage the work across multiple teams. Organizations should do their research and implement the tools that fit the best to their technology ecosystem."

Implementing Agile project management is committing to continuous improvement. This involves regularly reviewing and adjusting the project based on feedback from stakeholders and identifying areas for product improvement in order to ensure that the team is always working towards delivering the most value to customers.

The use of Agile project management in the Fintech industry is gaining momentum mainly due to the benefits that it provides such as responding quickly based on changed customers' behavior or market trends and quicker time-to-market to satisfy their customers. It has become an essential tool for organizations to remain competitive in an unpredictable market while at the same time remaining relevant to their customers and delivering value to them. For such reasons, it becomes important for organizations to embrace Agile project management and implement it efficiently to reap its benefits to remain competitive.