November 10, 2020
When it Comes to Enterprise Implementations, Agile is Not the Latest Business Fad
This article first appeared in Forbes November 2020 issue. Author: Steve Banker, featuring Chad Kramlich, CRO, Open Sky Group
In a recent survey from the consulting firm, McKinsey and Company, 70% of companies are piloting agile methodology. Some would even call it, the latest business fad. However, as Steve Banker from Forbes recently learned for his article “When it Comes to Enterprise Implementations, Agile is Not the Latest Business Fad,” it is a well-established methodology with Warehouse Management System (WMS) implementations.
While gathering information for his article, Steve had the opportunity to learn the benefits of Agile methodology by discussing the topics with several industry experts, including Open Sky Group’s Chief Revenue Officer, Chad Kramlich.
Chad Kramlich’s Insight on Agile
Several years ago, Open Sky Group challenged the implementation paradigm by shifting from the traditional waterfall style of project management to a more Agile methodology and approach. This shift has allowed Open Sky Group to hone their approach and streamline the workload of an implementation, decreasing the timeline from the standard 9+ months to as little as four.
“Within our Agile design methodology, we have sessions with customers. We might say to the group, ‘these are the 3 best practices for receiving based on the software capabilities. What’s most feasible for your operations?”
This initiates the conversation around the company’s current processes and allows the group to acknowledge and work through the trouble spots. Once those are smoothed out, Open Sky Group can demonstrate the feature and rapidly adjust the approach in real-time to fit the customer’s needs. This eliminates a lot of re-work and provides the client with the ability to play around with that functionality. Furthermore, it designs the process to the solution, which decreases implementation costs by extending the software instead of customizing it. Customizations increase implementation costs and inhibit the company’s ability to take advantage of future system upgrades.
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