Can Marketing go Agile? 2012 Agile Conference Speaker: 陳重瑜

 INTRODUCTION  BACKGROUND  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND ONE  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND TWO  CONCLUSION OUTLINE

 INTRODUCTION  BACKGROUND  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND ONE  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND TWO  CONCLUSION OUTLINE

 Some few brave souls have attempted to use Agile methods in business, sales, marketing teams.  The Perforce use Agile methods in marketing team, here will describe our journey so far, the problems we overcame, and the road ahead. INTRODUCTION

 INTRODUCTION  BACKGROUND  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND ONE  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND TWO  CONCLUSION OUTLINE

 Perforce engineering and Agile  Perforce marketing department structure and functions BACKGROUND

 Perforce develops version management software  250 employees, 5 offices, Three continents  Perforce’s engineering teams adopted Agile starting in 2008 Perforce engineering and Agile

 MarComs:  product release promotion  participating in trade shows and events  producing outbound collateral  engaging in social media channels  Product management and technical marketing:  Product management: product business analysis and planning  technical marketing: on technical trends and competitive research Perforce marketing department structure and functions

 INTRODUCTION  BACKGROUND  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND ONE  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND TWO  CONCLUSION OUTLINE

 Lack of communication  Lack of management visibility  Schedule chaos Problems seen

 Lack of communication and transparency hampered marketing.  Marketing did not understand the engineering priorities, roadmap, or product direction  communication problems were even more severe between the US and UK offices Lack of communication

 Marketing managers did not always understand what their teams were working on day-to-day.  No clear record of task priority, daily task assignments were often inferred, or communicated verbally or over . Lack of management visibility

 A change in engineering schedule, while often unavoidable, has a large downstream impact on marketing  Marketing is bound by another department’s schedule, making it difficult to plan effectively. Schedule chaos

 That problem actually grew worse after engineering adopted Agile.  Marketing activities simply have a long lead time and are difficult to adjust at the last minute Schedule chaos

 The problems encountered by the marketing teams are those often solved by Agile  In early 2011 the decision was made to adopt Agile in marketing, using the Scrum framework Scrum!

 Basic visibility improved (intra-department)  The white board is a mess  Little visibility inter-department  Little coordination with remote teams How did we do?

 Simply having 30 minutes each day for the managers to hear what everyone was working on  those meetings were taking too long. With as many as 8 people in the room and on the phone, finishing in a half hour was difficult Basic visibility improved (intra- department)

 The task board was not a resounding success those first months.  No value for the remote workers or the team in the UK. The white board is a mess

 Engineering manager would not have gotten a good sense of marketing’s tasks and priorities from looking at the task board  there was no cross-department participation in the Scrum activities, so no information was shared between departments. Little visibility inter-department

 It was very difficult for those of us working remotely to participate  Several of us travel frequently and often missed the standup meetings Little coordination with remote teams

 INTRODUCTION  BACKGROUND  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND ONE  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND TWO  CONCLUSION OUTLINE

 Round One was a mixed bag  In true Agile fashion, we adapted and made some changes  This section covers our experiences in the second half of 2011 and the first part of ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND TWO

 Put more emphasis on using collaboration tools  Using Basecamp for some project planning and collaboration  Teams in Alameda continue to use the physical task board to facilitate the daily standup meeting ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND TWO

 After some experience, we got better at task estimation  how much could reasonably fit into a month  what types of tasks were likely to be impacted by external factors  what activities had to be decomposed into smaller tasks Better estimation

 INTRODUCTION  BACKGROUND  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND ONE  ADOPTING AGILE: ROUND TWO  CONCLUSION OUTLINE

 Marketing has settled into something of a rhythm with Agile.  Adopting Agile have actually exposed underlying problems in business processes and organization. CONCLUSION

 Adopting Agile in marketing brought some immediate benefits  The problems that were exposed were lingering  A long road ahead of us  We need tools CONCLUSION

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