Individual entrepreneurs with agile professional 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 bring great perspective, increased productivity, and relevant experience to countless mission-critical projects.

Agile innovation first spread across the information technology industry and dramatically increased success rates in software development, 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 terms of ways your current and potential clients can purchase agile practices and how you can incorporate certain agile methods in your consultancy.

More than in the past, business enterprises now exist in very dynamic conditions. Customer priorities and technological advances are known to change rapidly. Keeping abreast of new developments and innovating or adapting, as necessary, the company’s products and services in response is essential. 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 does not mean doing the usual, but faster. Darrell Rigby, partner at consulting firm Bain & Company, and Hirotaka Takeuchi, professor of strategy at Harvard Business School and CEO of Scrum, Inc., a training and consulting firm, describe agile business practices as containing the following elements:

• Scrum: Creative and adaptive teamwork that solves complex problems.
• Lean development: Which focuses on continuous waste removal.
• kan-ban: That focuses on reducing lead times and the amount of time it takes to complete a process.

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

• When 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 work to be done on a project is not precisely known
• When cross-functional collaboration is supposed to be 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 competency 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 to the table.

Solopreneur external consultants must always present ourselves as reliable, trustworthy, capable and able to meet or exceed client expectations through the cutting edge skills 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 bring us on board. In this way we can build and sustain a viable consultancy.

Thank you for reading,

kim