The agile entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs with agile career skills bring urgently needed expertise to the organizations they work with, often limited to a specific task and for a predetermined period of time. Agile Solopreneurs provide deep knowledge, increased productivity, and relevant experience for countless mission-critical projects.

Agile innovation first spread to the information technology industry and significantly increased software development success rates, improving product quality and speed to market. Agile management techniques are spreading to other industries and Solopreneur consultants need to be aware of what is involved, both in regards to the ways your clients and prospects can buy agile practices and how you might incorporate certain agile methods in your consulting.

More than in the past, business enterprises now exist in very dynamic conditions. Customer priorities and technological advancements are known to change rapidly. Being aware of new developments and innovating or adapting the company’s products and services in response as needed is critical. Marketing strategies, advertising buzzwords, and sales strategies operate in short-term cycles that fit within the parameters of social media platforms. This fast-moving environment demands the management of leaders who master agile skills. But what does agile mean in practice?

Agile doesn’t mean doing the usual, just faster. Darrell Rigby, partner at Bain & Company consulting, and Hirotaka Takeuchi, professor of strategy at Harvard Business School and CEO of Scrum, Inc., a consulting and training firm, describe agile business practices as containing the following elements:

• Scrum: Creative and adaptive teamwork that solves complex problems.
• Lean development: That focuses on continuous waste disposal.
• Kanban: That focuses on reducing lead times and the amount of time required to complete a process.

Agile management practices are especially well suited for strategic planning activities, marketing campaigns, resource allocation decisions, and supply chain challenges. Agile works best when complex problems can be divided into modules and assigned to specific teams. Examples of ideal conditions in which to apply agile methods or innovations include:

• When the solutions to an obstacle or challenge are unknown

• When the specifications of a product under development may be subject to change

• When the scope of the work to be carried out in a project is not known with precision

• When cross-functional collaboration is presumed vital and time-to-market is sensitive

To expand (or at least maintain) billable hours, Solopreneurs should acquire agile skills (books, blogs, and certifications are available) and promote their competition by selling intangible B2B services to prospects. Decision makers in organizations facing a mission critical project, challenge, or opportunity can feel more confident hiring a Solopreneur who can bring agile methods and problem-solving approaches.

Solopreneur external consultants must always present ourselves as trustworthy, trustworthy, capable and capable of meeting or exceeding client expectations through the cutting edge skills that we possess. In this way, we make hiring managers and project sponsors feel that they will appear trustworthy and capable to their peers and superiors when they recruit us. In this way we can build and maintain a viable consultancy.

Thank you for reading,

Kim