Top 5 Agile Methods to Leverage in Procurement

In nature, cross pollination can yield wonderful new varieties of plants. As bees and other insects buzz between different plant species, magic can happen and a new type of plant is born.

I think this is a great analogy for one of the ways you can bring innovation to your field; that is, getting inspired by methods and tools that work in other fields, applying them to yours when relevant and evaluating the results to see if you’ve got something.

In this spirit, I think there is tremendous potential to “level up” your procurement operations by applying Agile methods to your procurement operations. At its core, Agile methods are centered around improving communication, collaboration, feedback and trust in software development. However, who says we can't use these tools for our procurement teams?

So here we go, the Top 5 Agile methods for use in Procurement. Most of these work in a Procure-to-Pay setting but all of them apply in a strategic sourcing and contracting setting.

#5 – The “Stand Up” Meeting

One of my favorite Agile tools that transfers well to Procurement is the ‘Stand Up Meeting’. Book a periodic (2-5 times a week), short meeting (15 min max) with your immediate team where each member answers the following 3 questions:

• What was accomplished during the last period

• Accomplishments on the "To Do" in the next period

• What, if any, “blockers” are preventing them from doing their work

A timer is set and a scribe has a calendar/email application open. When action items emerge from the exercise (need for an offline meeting, need to notify someone, new task, etc.), the scribe plans/notes the actions and involves the appropriate people. Once everyone has answered the 3 question the meeting ends and everyone goes about executing their next period and addressing the action items.

No details should be discussed at the meeting. It’s an insurance policy to ensure everyone is spending their time on the appropriate items and to plan activities to course correct as needed.

It takes a while before a team gets the hang of the stand up meeting. The leader and team members need to keep each other honest and on point. By experimenting, you’ll find the right periodicity for maximal value. This might also change over time depending on how busy you are as a team.

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