You may have heard that “Agile is dead.” Agileists have overused buzzwords, promoted process and change over people, and treated agile like a religion rather than an evolving approach to better ways of working.
Tamas Polgar asserted that Agile has failed because its proponents “just parrot the buzzwords and play with meaningless cards and colorful charts all day long.” Scott Middleton said McKinsey broke that by promoting “Agile Transformation Offices,” moving away from self-organizing teams and promoting process over people. Forbes pointed out that Agile's demise dates back to 2019. That's because Agile “became a religion, and like most religions, it didn't mean much to outsiders or even participants.”
I am here to tell you that there is truth to these accusations. There is another side to the agile story.
- Colt Technology Services achieved up to 500% improvement in some of its most important business measurements by moving from an outcome-based to an outcomes-based approach to marketing.
- Huntington National Bank increases loan application conversion rates and improves the customer experience by focusing not only on getting work done quickly, but also delivering value faster, measured by business outcomes. I was able to improve it.
- By implementing agile technology in its marketing organization, HID Global achieved its annual pipeline contribution goals three months early and achieved 116% year-over-year growth. Additionally, employee engagement scores increased from 73% to 84%.
Why are some organizations achieving these results by applying agile methodologies, while others are simply playing the ball? And what does this mean for the future of agile? Is it?
5 Prescriptions for a Better Agile Future
1. Focus on outcomes and value delivery
Focusing on results and delivering value is the most important element for an organization to succeed with Agile. If an organization doesn't do this, the rest of Agile won't matter.
If a martech professional thinks it’s his job to install and keep the components of the marketing stack running, he doesn’t get it. His job is to deliver competitive advantage as measured by business results and value delivery.
It doesn't make sense for content marketers to embrace Agile with the hope that it will help them deliver more content faster. Her job is to increase pipeline, conversions, or whatever business metric is critical to her business, whether new content takes her one per week or 20 weeks.
No matter what their job is, successful agile adopters identify the metrics that matter to their business and evaluate everything they do based on those metrics. Don't do agile for agile's sake.
Dig deeper: 3 ways to align marketers with business outcomes
2. Ditch the Agile buzzwords in favor of business language.
Remove the words Scrum, Sprint, Kanban, Epic, Retrospective, ART, PI Planning, and RTE from your vocabulary. Implementing Kanban means a new approach to managing workflows that's more visual, with fewer reports and status meetings for everyone, including stakeholders. If you introduce Scrum and Sprints, let everyone know that he plans in 1- or 2-week cycles to increase focus and accountability.
When explaining change, go back to principle 1: delivering results and value. It's not about adopting agile. We are changing the way we work to create better outcomes and value. Stop using agile language and start speaking business language.
3. Stop transforming and phase in agile.
Transformation is scary, isn't it? No one wants change unless they initiate and control it. Agile is most effective when implemented in an agile manner. Step by step, experiment, adopt what works and discard what doesn't.
Every time I hear a company announce a major agile transformation, I run. The success rate for such large-scale changes is horribly low. Focus on delivering better results and value by making incremental changes.
People support what they create and what solves problems. Are you a marketer overwhelmed? Believe me. Focus on stopping the overwhelm. Are marketers unable to get their work done because they all work in silos with different priorities and ways of working? Build cross-functional teams or refocus around value delivery. Organize. Do marketers need help bridging the gap between strategy and execution? How can you help them plan and prioritize tactics that support strategy?
Digging deeper: 4 common pitfalls of failed agile marketing transformations (and how to avoid them)
4. Customize Agile for your unique situation
Agile is not “one size fits all”. It must be customized to each organization's unique circumstances. This doesn't mean that organizations should choose parts of agile based on their whims. You should choose agile practices based on what works and what doesn't.
Try different agile approaches. Starting with Kanban minimizes confusion and what you learn using Kanban can also be applied to Scrum and Scrumban. Try different sprint lengths. (Oops, I mean different planning cycles!)
Don't limit yourself to Agile. Apply lean manufacturing techniques. Follow design thinking principles when designing customer experiences. Give AI a try and make it part of your toolbox.
Dig deeper: How marketers are adopting agile ways of working
5. Take customer centricity seriously
According to Bain & Co.'s 2022 study, up to 80% of businesses believe they provide a great customer experience, but only 8% of customers agree. When companies pay lip service to customer centricity rather than actually understanding it, they create a gap between their perception and the reality of their customers.
It starts with understanding your customers, gathering data about their behaviors, preferences, and expectations, and adjusting your marketing efforts to meet those needs. Customer centricity requires regular customer contact and a voice of the customer program that educates the rest of the company about what customers want.
Design and deliver great customer experiences. Customers don't just want a product or service. They want their expectations to be met and problems resolved on their terms. The more your customers tell others and spread the news by word of mouth, the more you can create different and amazing experiences.
Finally, operationalize customer centricity. Customer centricity has many examples and examples of employees going the extra mile. We spend money to ensure our customers receive a consistently great experience. Don't rely on heroes. It needs to be part of your company's culture, operations, and daily experience. This requires effort and cost to operate.
Let's dig deeper: Category Leader North Star's Goal: Agile, Customer-Centric Culture
Keep agile marketing effective and relevant
Agile is not dead, but its future is not guaranteed. Like digital marketing, account-based marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, and other marketing approaches, Agile needs to change with the times.
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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.
