Bridges instead of walls: how lawyers and financiers work with agile teams

Support and control functions—human resources, legal, and finance—can help agile teams deliver outstanding results. To do this, they need to give such teams extended powers, Bain & Company analysts say Conflict of interest

Support and control functions such as HR, finance, risk management, legal and tax create a business environment in which experimentation and innovation can be safely carried out.

However, these groups are paid to avoid problems, so they may be skeptical of innovations such as agile management ideas. They are concerned that the use of such principles will lead to sloppiness or recklessness in business processes.

Agile teams often worry that support and control staff will build barriers and delay their work. However, agile teams can work in tandem with enabling and controlling functions to deliver outstanding results.

Consider the example of covid-19 CORONAVIRUS vaccines . They were developed, produced and delivered to different organizations in less than 12 months! Of course, credit must be given to the researchers and scientists who have discovered breakthrough approaches for the development of these vaccines. But support and control functions in manufacturing companies also played an important role. They helped companies get regulatory approvals as quickly as possible.

How long it takes an agile team to release an innovation is determined by two factors: the time it takes to complete work within the team, and the time it takes to get things done, such as budget approvals, legal consultations, or hiring staff. How quickly such support is obtained depends on many aspects, such as:

planning calendars; decision making and approval processes; budgeting and financing cycles; software release schedules; legal and regulatory restrictions; personnel distribution, etc.

And if there are problems in any of these aspects, then the overall rate of innovation in the company can remain the same, despite the creation of more and more agile teams.

When agile and enablement teams trust each other, they can accelerate many business processes by achieving a sensible balance of risk and reward and reducing downtime. Low-risk activities do not require the same level of sophistication as high-risk ones. At the same time, understanding the most significant risks and key limitations is useful, including for agile teams.