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The Human Capital Project came about

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because the Bank had much stronger evidence

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that human development outcomes directly impact

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on economic growth and poverty reduction.

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We've all known it's intuitively important to make sure

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that all kids are healthy and well educated,

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but now we know it's really important for the development

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of countries as a whole.

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And so we were trying to help countries to see

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how they compare on making progress on these important

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health and education outcomes,

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the ones that really track directly to growth.

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And our bosses set us a really ambitious goal

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to come up with an instrument that we could actually present

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to countries to really show how well

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they were doing relative to each other.

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I think you would probably expect a year

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to deliver something like this.

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The time we were given was very short,

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it was just three months.

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So we were up against a very serious deadline.

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It was a hard deadline, because the index had to be launched

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at the Bank/IMF annual meetings in Bali in 2018.

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And so there was no getting past that,

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we just all had to be delivered and done.

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So Agile, like the World Bank,

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we think of it with two different meanings.

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There's capital "A" Agile and lowercase agile.

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The Bank is trying to be lowercase agile,

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trying to be more nimble, more efficient, more effective.

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To do that, we pull from capital "A" Agile the method,

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the principles, the tools, the techniques.

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We started with regular check-in meetings even before

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we were seated together.

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We collectively designed an open space.

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I also think that one of the things that the Agile mindset

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brought was this idea of sprints, right,

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so we had a number of core deliverables.

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And we were able to define those and sort of bring

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our collective energy almost sequentially.

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We were blessed in some ways that we started

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with a new team.

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And that allowed us to think right away about

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how could we utilize a cross-functional team?

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How could we work in iterative ways?

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How could we focus on minimally viable products

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that then build?

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How can we generate as much value as possible

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for our clients--internal and external?

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We utilized an open space, we had large whiteboards,

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we maintained a backlog of ideas and activities.

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All of these things were agile ways of working

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that we basically just used as our normal mode of working.

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One of the reasons I like Agile

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is because I think it turns our organizational structures

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upside down, and it empowers the frontline teams.

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Often I think in big bureaucracies there's a real breakdown

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in communication between the frontline team

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and the senior management.

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And this actually creates a direct channel if you like.

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Because the way the teams approach solving their problems

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and the sense that they get that they can actually

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take control over some of the things that they feel

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are standing in the way of them being successful is really,

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in a way, it's revolutionary.

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And I really hope that that can be a great legacy here

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at the World Bank, because we've got great, fantastic people

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working in our frontline teams.