BR#24: Extending Agile Ways of Working Beyond Development

The Agile Methodology came about at a time when software developers were at the forefront of a rapidly growing digital business environment. One that carried with it new demands and complexity which traditional ways of working were not suited to address.

Agile was designed to manage that complexity effectively. It’s been the gold standard in software development ever since.

But where are we today?

More and more of our work today is done digitally.

The complexity and speed of change which have always characterized the development industry are not confined to it. More and more of the work we all do is now digital. This applies to marketing, finance, sales, and a whole host of other business processes.

We have all inherited the growing complexity of the digital world and therefore, our ways of working need to be adapted to this reality.

As far as that concerns me personally, my experience over the past 10 years has been split between working on marketing with marketeers and business people and working with developers on digital solutions.

And I think all digital marketers today could benefit from using Agile and Scrum to manage their work effectively. That’s why I’ve created this course on Udemy on how to do just that.

So what is it that makes Agile such an effective project management approach in the context of complex and dynamic industries? Here 3 principles that stand out:

• A focus on empiricism, which promotes data-driven decision making, frequent testing and iterating.
  

• A simple organizational structure that promotes collaboration and enables fast decision-making. The only roles recognised in Scrum are Developers (people responsible for implementing work), Scrum Masters (responsible for training and promoting Scrum practices), Product Owners (responsible for vision, prioritization and stakeholder management), and, unofficially, stakeholders (whose opinions influence the course of the work to be done).
  

• Work gets done in rapid increments (i.e. sprints) and the scope of work is constantly adapted based on learnings from previous sprints. In many cases, this approach provides a more efficient alternative to the traditional waterfall model and lengthy planning cycles, leading to faster progress and quicker releases.

Agile is relatively easy to implement because it was designed to be flexible so that it can be used broadly. It’s not difficult to learn but mastering it does depend on how well a company adheres to its key principles.