Putting Agile Marketing into Practice

November 2012Michelle Accardi

A Little About Me & What Agile is All About

• I believe everyone has the ability to drive excellence e in their areas of expertise→ Passionate about everything I do→ Happy to try and fail – just don’t make the

same mistake twice→ Surround myself with like minded passion

but not necessarily agreeable→ Evangelize what you believe in

→ Author of Agile Marketing available on Amazon

• Strong belief in collaborative leadership→ Have to get cross organizational “buy-in”

• Obvious Pragmatic Innovation→ Common sense- uncommonly executed→ Plan, fail, iterate, succeed

Constant change is the new dynamic of the global economy– * Only 74 of the original 500 companies in the S&P Index were still on

the list 40 years later – a mortality rate of more than 10 per year. The average life span of an S&P 500 company has steadily decreased from more than 50 years to fewer than 25. Projecting forward, it’s likely that only about one-third of today’s major corporations will survive as significant businesses for the next quarter century.– Some notable examples:

Circuit City Pontiac Borders

If companies want to survive they need to be customer focused and agile

Why do companies need agile marketing?

3 Copyright © 2012 CA. All rights reserved. FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY.*The Speed of Business Today By Faisal Hoque 2009

Agile is about the customer experience

4Source: Chiefmartec.com

Copyright © 2012 CA. All rights reserved. FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY.

Agile is a management process not a technical process. It is an iterative method of determining the priority of requirements, executing against that priority in time fixed sprints, continually measuring results and re-prioritizing in a highly flexible and collaborative manner.

But what is agile scrum really?

5

*The Scrum project management method. Part of the image is based on public domain graphics from Open Clip Art Library (openclipart.org). |Source=self-made |Date=January 9th 2008 |Author= Lakeworks

Valuable Increment of marketing program

Marketing program backlog

We are discovering better ways of creating value for our customers and for our organizations through new approaches to marketing. Through this work, we have come to value:

Validated learning over opinions and conventions

Customer focused collaboration over silos and hierarchy

Adaptive and iterative campaigns over Big-Bang campaigns

The process of customer discovery over static prediction

Flexible vs. rigid planning

Responding to change over following a plan

Many small experiments over a few large betshttp://agilemarketingmanifesto.org/

The Agile Marketing Manifesto

6*** Derived these values from previously posted Agile Marketing manifestos, which were summarized in a blog post by Travis Arnold, Roundup: Agile Marketing Manifestos.

Scrum master- the coach for the values of the team/helps remove obstacles that may come up- protects the team from over committing or complancency

Sprint- a fixed set of time the team agrees to deliver some valuable output at the end of

User story- a marketing requirement written from the users perspective. As a ____ I want to be able to ______ so I can _______.

Story points- a way of estimating both the complexity of the task and priority

Program backlog- the overall marketing user story or requirements list

Sprint backlog – the prioritized list of what the team has agreed to accomplish this week.

Burn down chart-Daily project chart that shows how you have done to delivering value promised over the course of a sprint

Definition of done- agreement of what is value for the sprint and how it will be measured by program leadership and stakeholders

Agile Marketing terminology

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Pigs have come to describe all the program developers, designers and testers who commit to the actual work.

Chicken is applied to everyone else who make intellectual contributions but do not commit to any work.

We need both but chickens and stakeholders need to be silent on scrum calls

Pigs , Chickens and others executives you need to deal with in an agile marketing project

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Agile: Principals on Practical ApplicationTE

AM

VELO

CITY

• Organize your cross functional team.• Define roles for team

• Program Owner( product owner)• This person helps maintain the backlog of

requirements by representing stakeholders• Scrum master helps team overcome obstacles • Development team/content creators/content distribution• Internal and External Customer representatives should be

on your team• Organize meeting cadence

• Daily 15 min scrum meeting• What you are working on today, tomorrow, obstacles

or where you have dependencies• Where multiple agile teams intersect have Scrum of

Scrum calls to coordinate• Hold Sprint reviews every month to showcase value

created/discuss priorities for next sprint

Tackling the Marketing Organization

• Breakdown primary silos of marketing organization with larger business and put them on cross functional self managed teams→ Sales→ Product marketing→ Brand → Field marketing→ Corporate marketing→ Operations

• Alignment of marketing objectives to business objectives to help prioritize→ Demand generation→ Sales enablement→ Customer education/support→ Thought leadership/messaging→ Improved customer interaction→ Drive loyalty

QU

ALIT

Y

VALU

E

New Method for Marketing

• Traditional methods have to be transformed→Speed of business faster than ever→Technology advances drive fast real-time

customer interactions →Significance of social media impact→Educated Consumer

• Agile gives you the framework to meet these new demands• It’s a cultural change not just a marketing

process change

• Sometimes less is more – understand the needs of the customer, think very hard about what your marketing should really be all about. Could you take your program to market with all the important features, or with features that are less functionally rich, in a fraction of the time?

Transformation Framework for Agile Marketing

Functional Alignment of Marketing for Agile

Marketing in the Agile Garden of Eden Requires Cultural Change • Admitting you have the need to change

and become user centric• Defining of user stories to help drive

requirement priorities• Assignment of responsibility & priority

to implement change• Measuring the result and iterating of

effectiveness of change

• Evaluate whether the issue is a real issue for your company and priority

• Validate the information with your program leadership governance board—do others see the vision?

• Execute quickly and with key performance indicators that you put in place

1. Develop Persona’s based on your usersa) GET REAL CUSTOMER INPUT ON YOUR TEAMS OR THE CLOSEST THING

TO IT- SALES AND SUPPORT REPRESENTATION!

2. Develop user stories for what your users need or will want to get out of your marketing programs

3. Think about how your users will traverse through understanding they have a need to actually buying and map that journey and what content they will need along the way

4. Audit and evaluate what you have to meet those needs- re use is a great agile principle

5. Prioritize what you don’t have based on value to user across that journey

Simple 5 point plan to start tp put agile marketing into practice

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Align Complimentary Organizations

• Sales→ Enablement – collateral,

assets, educationo Just in time with

sales cycle→ Messaging – internal

and external→ Lead generation and

qualification• Executive Management

→ Corporate objectives→ Shareholder/owner/

service accountability→ Innovation and thought

leadership→ Revenue growth

Align objectives for of external organizations

Align Complimentary Organizations

• Don’t ignore the internal IT Department make sure you gain alignment with marketing→ Challenges against

existing strongholds→ Methodology evolution→ Adapt, align, execute→ Doing more with less→ Increased demand→ Avoid technology for

technology sake

IT and Marketing are coming closer together- make them part of the team!

Path to Transformation – Create, Implement , Sustain

Agile Method Applied to Marketing

• Brand new UX , UI, and design• Implementation of 5 new technologies

→ CMS→ Community Technology→ eCommerce→ Search→ SSO

• Comprehensive content strategy• Social Media integration• Departmental integration, leadership

and transformation→ Internal IT→ Education→ Support→ Services→ Marketing

CA Technologies Applied Case Study –Delivered fully integrated cross functional on-line presence in 4 months

What Success Looks Like

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- SiteIQ – Top 10 best enterprise tech site for social usability- Winner – web marketing awards- Highest lead to revenue marketing application- Sales and Support collaboration

Steps for success

• Articulate objectives but don’t be prescriptive on the how….• Hire the best and trust them

• Agile is an ongoing journey not a destination

• Right-size marketing goals, budget, and resources to business and sales strategy and prioritize everything

• TEST EVERYTHING- A/B Testing, eye tracking, qualitative feedback

• Negative reviews are gifts to help you know where to improve

Steps for success

• Understand what your customers need internally and externally

• Focus on fewer metrics that are actionable

• Organize around one CRM strategy for sales and marketing and support.

• Knows when to bring it in-house or source it for the best quality and cost. • It’s ok if you don’t know how to

do everything yourself- focus on what is your focus and outsource for other

Steps for success

• Ensure the Marketing objectives for each sprint are clearly defined from start to finish on delivering to objective

• Budget and resource empowerment to get the job done—include procurement/sourcing on your agile team to ensure

• Remove “roadblocks” and disruptions that may distract the execution team from the day-to-day work effort (e.g., resolve issues, communicate those issues and resolve – EVE)

• Trust but verify-review key deliverables and milestones daily and weekly using the burn down• Hold team members accountable and make them hold

each other accountable• Monitor and manage the delivery of business results assigned-

are you meeting business objectives if not change

Steps for success

• Hold daily stand up scrum calls where only the accountable give updates

• Empower a scrum master to remove obstacles

• Communicate cross-project view to during a weekly Project leadership team (PLT) meeting where all program owners come together.

• Monitor, milestones for projects within fixed time sprints.• 2-5 week sprints

recommended

Steps for success

• Identify and track cross-project dependencies

• Limit in sprint scope changes (e.g., changes that may affect the release budget, timeline, or performance outcomes.

• Balance the need to minimize risk to release schedule, cost, and benefit with the need to accommodate changing customer needs.

Steps for success

• Facilitate the resolution of project team and cross-project team issues.

• Identify issues and risks that may affect the program and budget, timeline, or performance outcomes and be transparent with business about them.

• Identify risks, develop mitigation plans (i.e., potential future issues), and report them to scrum master to help mitigate and remove obstacles.

Don’t re- invent the wheel

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• Leverage what you already have• Content re use is a good thing• Provide program leads with applicable

standards, tools, policies/procedures, and time frames. There are a ton of resources use them:

ResourcesAgile Marketing- Michelle Accardi-PetersenJim Ewel's Agile Marketing BlogAgile Marketing Topic on QuoraAgile Marketing Tools on QuoraTravis Arnold's Posts on Agile MarketingIDC Report on Agile MarketingScott Brinker's Posts on Agile Marketing

THE BUSINESS ANALYST I have twelve meetings today, I don’t have time to get into the whole user story. But I can tell you it involves a rooster on a distributed team.

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER So the chicken can check in and oust the Mayor of the Other Side of the Road.

THE AGILE PROJECT MANAGER The chicken is just not going to be able to cross the road this month. Crossing requirements were due last Friday. She will have to take her place on the backlog. Maybe the chicken can cross the road in Sprint 9.

WEB ANALYTICS We’ll need to get some tags on that chicken to be able to tell you that.

THE BUSINESS OWNER Because I have three other business initiatives riding on the chicken being on the other side of the road that were supposed to start six weeks ago. You’re killing me.

UX The question isn’t why the chicken crossed the road. The question is why the chicken felt she had to cross the road. If a coop’s usability issues won’t allow chickens to complete their egg-laying tasks, they’ll bail that coop and find another one that will.

THE DEVELOPER Because the requirements said so. The trebuchet was the most efficient method. Oh, she had to get to the other side alive? Where was that in the requirements?

SCRUM MANAGER Let’s iterate, people. Let’s get the chicken to the center line today, and we’ll talk about the rest of the way tomorrow.

Agile Humor – Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? Posted on January 12, 2011 by cathy

Why did the chicken cross the road? Understanding the agile team

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Thank you

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