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Overview
This course equips finance professionals with the mindset, models, and practical techniques needed to enable enterprise agility while maintaining strong financial stewardship. Participants will explore how traditional finance practices interact with complexity, why many controls struggle in fastchanging environments, and how finance can evolve from a gatekeeping role into a system steward that enables learning, value flow, and responsible decisionmaking.
Through a mix of conceptual frameworks, facilitated discussion, simulations, and handson exercises, learners will examine budgeting, accounting, and procurement through an agile lens. The emphasis throughout is not on weakening discipline, but on redesigning financial systems so that rigour, adaptability, and trust can coexist.
By the end of the course, participants will have:
- A clear mental model for why finance must change in complex environments
- Practical approaches to adaptive budgeting, funding, and forecasting
- Increased confidence applying agile principles within accounting and compliance constraints
- Tools to improve collaboration, trust, and value creation across the business ecosystem
Prerequisites
Participants should have:
- Experience working in or closely with a finance, accounting, procurement, or governance function
- Familiarity with basic financial concepts (budgeting, forecasting, reporting)
- No prior agile certification required
Target audience
This course is designed for:
- Finance professionals (FP&A, accounting, controlling, procurement)
- Finance leaders supporting agile or digital transformations
- Business partners working at the intersection of finance and delivery
- Leaders and coaches seeking to understand agile finance principles
Learning objectives
By completing this course, participants will be able to:
- Explain agility as a response to uncertainty, not a framework or set of practices
- Apply complexity thinking to financial decisionmaking
- Distinguish between traditional and agile finance roles, behaviours, and incentives
- Redesign budgeting and funding approaches to support learning and value delivery
- Apply agile principles within accounting, compliance, and ethical boundaries
- Evaluate procurement and contract models for their impact on collaboration and outcomes
- Advise senior stakeholders on finance changes that are both agile and compliant
Course Outline
Module 1: Finance with an Agile Mindset
Key topics:
- Agility as a response to uncertainty
- Why traditional finance models struggle in complex environments
- The Cynefin framework and financial decision types
- What stays the same vs what changes in agile finance
- The shifting role of finance: from controller to decision partner
Key activities:
- Mapping finance decisions to Cynefin
- Role shift simulation: controller vs coach
Module 2: Budgeting & Cost Management
- The true purposes of budgeting: targets, forecasts, allocation
- Beyond Budgeting concepts and principles
- Incremental and productbased funding
- Funding across the product lifecycle (explore vs exploit)
- Value management vs cost management
- Empowering teams through transparent financial decisionmaking
Key activities:
- Decision poker: decentralising financial authority
- Realworld funding scenario discussions
Module 3: What’s Different About Accounting
Key topics:
- Accounting as an information and control system
- Agile and regulatory obligations
- Principlesbased accounting and professional judgement
- Ethics and psychological safety in finance
- CapEx vs OpEx in agile contexts
- Agile accounting metrics (cost of delay, cost of quality, future value)
Key activities:
- CapEx / OpEx classification exercises
- Metric calculation and interpretation workshop
Module 4: Agile Procurement
Key topics:
- Why traditional procurement struggles in complexity
- From fixed scope to shared outcomes
- Partnership ecosystems and supplier collaboration
- LeanAgile Procurement Canvas
- Agile contract and pricing models
- Outcomebased KPIs and feedback loops
Key activities:
- Procurement canvas exercise
- Contract negotiation simulation
Exams and assessments
There are no formal exams in this course. Participants will complete guided exercises, group challenges, and a final capstone project to apply their knowledge and receive peer and instructor feedback.
Hands-on learning
- Facilitated discussions grounded in real finance scenarios
- Group exercises and simulations (budgeting, funding, role shift, contracting)
- Practical tools and canvases for immediate workplace application
- Peer learning through comparison, dialogue, and reflection
Frequently asked questions
How can I create an account on myQA.com?
There are a number of ways to create an account. If you are a self-funder, simply select the "Create account" option on the login page.
If you have been booked onto a course by your company, you will receive a confirmation email. From this email, select "Sign into myQA" and you will be taken to the "Create account" page. Complete all of the details and select "Create account".
If you have the booking number you can also go here and select the "I have a booking number" option. Enter the booking reference and your surname. If the details match, you will be taken to the "Create account" page from where you can enter your details and confirm your account.
Find more answers to frequently asked questions in our FAQs: Bookings & Cancellations page.
How do QA’s virtual classroom courses work?
Our virtual classroom courses allow you to access award-winning classroom training, without leaving your home or office. Our learning professionals are specially trained on how to interact with remote attendees and our remote labs ensure all participants can take part in hands-on exercises wherever they are.
We use the WebEx video conferencing platform by Cisco. Before you book, check that you meet the WebEx system requirements and run a test meeting to ensure the software is compatible with your firewall settings. If it doesn’t work, try adjusting your settings or contact your IT department about permitting the website.
How do QA’s online courses work?
QA online courses, also commonly known as distance learning courses or elearning courses, take the form of interactive software designed for individual learning, but you will also have access to full support from our subject-matter experts for the duration of your course.
Once you have purchased the Online course and have completed your registration, you will receive the necessary details to enable you to immediately access it through our e-learning platform and you can start to learn straight away, from any compatible device. Access to the online learning platform is valid for one year from the booking date.
All courses are built around case studies and presented in an engaging format, which includes storytelling elements, video, audio and humour. Every case study is supported by sample documents and a collection of Knowledge Nuggets that provide more in-depth detail on the wider processes.
When will I receive my joining instructions?
Joining instructions for QA courses are sent two weeks prior to the course start date, or immediately if the booking is confirmed within this timeframe. For course bookings made via QA but delivered by a third-party supplier, joining instructions are sent to attendees prior to the training course, but timescales vary depending on each supplier’s terms. Read more FAQs.
When will I receive my certificate?
Certificates of Achievement are issued at the end the course, either as a hard copy or via email. Read more here.