How Agile Development Methods Work for Marketing
Agile software development has been used for over a decade. It’s a development process that values teamwork, flexibility and working closely with customers through many iterations of the product until the goal is met.
Scott W. Ambler, IBM’s Chief Methodologist for Agile and Lean explains why he believes the agile process is so effective:
One of several reasons why agile techniques are so effective, in my opinion, is that they reduce the feedback cycle between the generation of an idea (perhaps a requirement or a design strategy) and the realization of that idea. This not only minimizes the risk of misunderstanding, it also reduces the cost of addressing any mistakes.
The agile process is characterized by breaking projects into smaller increments that are completed in short bursts of creation, call sprints. Each sprint ends with the completion of a deliverable product. During each sprint, team members participate in daily scrum meetings to discuss progress, their plans for the day and any problems they anticipate. After the sprint is completed, a retrospective meeting is held to allow team members to review what went well and where improvements can be made. This review identifies areas for improvement.
Agile development works because it is structured to place a high priority on communication and teamwork. It is by nature adaptive and allows developers to think on their feet and change plans as new information comes to light. Breaking the project into short iterations gives developers room to course-correct without too much risk.
Marketing and sales professionals are finding that the concepts of agile development are a perfect fit for their field. The agile philosophy was built to accommodate change based on new information and insights. In fact, one of the tenets of the agile manifest is “responding to change over following a plan.”
Instead of mapping out a campaign in stone—months or years in advance,marketers incorporating agile concepts can plan for quick, successive launches with each one building on insights gained from previous iterations.
Agile development allows marketers to take advantage of today’s ability to quickly gather and analyze customer response. Changes can be effected almost immediately again and again until the long-term goal is met.
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