The majority of marketers who adopt the agile methodology report that their teams are more productive, get campaigns to market faster, and improve their business results. Employees also often report significant satisfaction with the agile method. A key organizational principle of agile marketing is the sprint.
Agile marketers typically break their work into 2-4 week sprints. Within this timebox people work on specific goals and tasks that are to be completed by the end of the sprint. The length of the sprint cannot be changed once it starts.
At the start of the sprint you’ll hold a sprint planning meeting to determine the goals and the tasks for each team member for that sprint and get buy-in from the team. During the sprint use daily 15-minute standup meetings to keep everyone focused on their sprint goals. The three questions that each person answers in the standup is:
- What did I do yesterday?
- What will I do today?
- Do I need help with anything that’s blocking me from accomplishing today’s tasks?
At the end of each sprint review what was accomplished, and any changes in the process needed for the next sprint.
Wash, rinse and repeat.
Given the depth of involvement of people, their specific tasks and their daily contact with one another and their manager, it’s not surprising that agile is embraced by many marketers. The agile methodology may not be appropriate for major, one-time events such as a national product launch (although it may help get everything teed up for that), but it is ideal for managing many modern marketing tasks such as developing content, email campaigns, events, social media marketing, search advertising, and so forth.
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