In the Forbes article “Why Agile Is Eating the World”, Steve Deming delivers another glossy, flowering version that Agile is mainstream and that your company is behind if Agile is not already prevalent in your organization.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I am obviously pro-Agile and a huge Steve Demming fan.  I have read several of Steve’s books and I take every opportunity to listen to him speak every chance I get.  Steve is one of the early proponents of Agile expanding beyond software development with his book “Radical Management“.

Yet, I have to point out that this article  doesn’t seem to acknowledge that the transition to Agile is often predicated by either a crisis or a fear of a crisis.  In my experiences, most organizations treat an transformational organizational change similar to a plague until they are in crisis mode.  Sure, they will make wave their hands saying Agile is a good thing.  However, the challenges of taking on a sweeping change are often more daunting.  Why screw up something that is working?

Waiting until you are in crisis puts the transformation squarely in the category of “silver bullet”.  Agile and Scrum are anything but that.  Both merely expose the challenges and problems of your organization that everyone has known about, but not had the courage to deal with.  Planning and initiating an Agile transformation while times are good creates momentum when there is less likely to be resistance.  Start small with a team or two, learn from their mistakes, and then iterate, quickly applying what you learned.  The impacts to your organization will be minimal as you start scaling out.  The success of your Agile teams will be your best advocate for moving forward.

Enjoy the article and follow Steve.  He knows his stuff.

Thanks for coming in today.

Chris

 

Marketing is changing. Are you ready or are you going to be left behind?

Before, companies ran on quarterly results, taking a long-term view.

They had the luxury of slow implementation, and of sitting back to see how things play out.

That’s not the way the world works anymore.

If a simple tweet can travel around the world in minutes, how can your company adapt?

The answer is Agile Marketing.

You might’ve heard this phrase bandied about by startups or new media Marketing, but what is it really?

We’re going to break down the most essential elements of Agile Marketing and how you can use them to keep on top of the game.

Agile Marketing: The Wave Of The Future

As mentioned previously, companies could take their time figuring out what worked best for them.

Nowadays, the changes come fast – and the demand shows no signs of letting up.

While it’s a concept forged in the quick-paced crucible of startup culture, it can scale to fit any business.

Agile Marketing is, well, Agile. It’s a flexible methodology that focuses on short-term sprints instead of marathons.

This helps you take advantage of the latest info and allows you to apply any changes without hesitation.

How can you apply it to your marketing strategy now so you can keep ahead of the trends?

Learn The Lingo

There are two important terms to know with Agile Marketing: Scrum and Kanban.

Let’s break them both down to see which one works best for you.

The Scrum framework involves focusing on how much work can be completed in a fixed length of time.

It goes like this: your company has a goal that you decide to achieve in one or two weeks.

You use only what’s essential to get this done and anything else is put in the backlog to be saved for future Sprints.

You start off the Sprint by having a Sprint Planning meeting.  During the meeting, the team comes to an agreement of what it is going to accomplish during the Sprint.

Every day, you have a quick meeting (Daily Scrum) with your team to discuss the highs and lows of production.

At the end of the Sprint, the team discusses what they learned to apply it to the teams’ next Sprint.  

Because you are working at a sustainable pace, you immediately start the next sprint.

Scrum is the most popular framework used in Agile Marketing, but Kanban can be easier to integrate into your existing marketing plan.

Kanban involves four different components.

The key component is the requirement or user story.

Stories are what you want to accomplish that will add value to your intended audience.

Once you identify the stories you want to complete, you’re going to organize them into a “todo” column.

The columns are pretty simple. They’re just lists of where you’re at with the story.

You can organize them however you want: “to do,” by personnel, by type of story, etc.

Now, assign each column a work in progress limits.

This means is that your team can only have a set amount of work assigned to them at a time. This keeps the workflow lean and mean.  The goal is for the stories to flow through the process on a continuous basis.

The last component is the hallmark of the Kanban method – continuous releases.

Once you’ve accomplished everything required for the story to be considered “complete”, you move the story to the next column to the right and move on to the next one, and so on.

As you can see, this is an effective way to keep your concept moving forward with short, efficient bursts.

Sprint Towards The Finish Line

Now that you’ve got the basics, try applying either Agile Marketing methodology to your marketing goals.

Your audience is going to have the most up to the minute info and, in turn, will give you the results you’re searching for.

Whichever method you choose, you’re going to sprint ahead of the competition.

If you want to find out how your company measures up, get a Scrum assessment from beLithe.

While this guide gave you the basics, if you’re ready to go pro, count on beLithe to be on the cutting edge of the next wave of marketing ideas.

Our goal is to help your company reach whatever benchmarks you set up. When you decide to apply Agile Marketing, make beLithe your partner.

So which one are you going to go with – scrum or Kanban? Tell us more and share your success stories!

 

 

The 5 Common Daily Scrum Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make At Your Next Stand-Up

1. This is NOT a status meeting

If you’re new to Scrum events, this is an easy (and common) mistake to make.

The Daily Scrum meeting is NOT a status meeting. So, avoid trying to solve problems by the team during the previous day’s sprint.

It’s important to keep the time limit of a daily Scrum in mind. The time is set to 15 minutes.

Respect the time of your teammates, and save the problem solving until after the meeting is over.

2. Do NOT use this as a planning meeting

Another don’t of the Daily Scrum is to use the time as a planning meeting.

Why not? Once the team goes down that road, the team members won’t get a chance to share his or her updates.

Instead, the team should stick to the purpose of the Daily Scrum, which is to inspect the progress made towards the Sprint Goal, and make any adjustments to the team’s plan to complete the work forecasted in the Sprint Backlog.

If a new requirement urgently needs to be discussed, one approach might be to arrange a 15-minute meeting just after the Daily Scrum and include the development team and product owner. Then and there you can discuss the requirement, its priority, etc.

3. Do NOT only focus on the Scrum master

There’s a misconception that Daily Scrum has to be solely facilitated by the  Scrum Master.

However, the role of the Scrum Master has a responsibility to ensure that the Daily Scrum occurs.

While the Scrum Master should ensure that the Daily Scrum occurs, that does not mean he/she owns the event.

Additionally, it doesn’t mean that the team has to “report” to the Scrum Master.  The Daily Scrum event is designed for the team.

4. Do NOT micromanage the team

If you are a Scrum Master, it’s important that you avoid issuing instructions to the team members. Additionally, don’t use the time to start planning how the team members should carry out a particular development activity.

Why? Because the Scrum process advocates self-management and self-organization.

Development team members should be encouraged to realize their responsibilities, working together to collaborate to solve process related issues.

To encourage self organization, the Scrum Master and Product Owner shouldn’t micro-manage the team and their activities.

5. Do NOT waste time by asking the wrong questions

For those new to the Daily Scrum, the team can start by adopting three question framework.

These questions include:

1. What was done the day before?
2. What is proposed to be done today?
3. Did the team face any problems or impediments?

The meeting should always try to embody the spirit of these three questions because the answers form the basis of the information that a team needs to assess their progress in the sprint.

How do you approach your daily Scrum meetings? How do you assess the success of your Scrum? Tell us what you’ve learned over time and what’s on your Scrum Cheat Sheet in the comments!