The Agile Marketer

Chapter 12Beyond Agile: More Methods to Link Marketing and Product Management with Innovation

I hope that by now I've convinced you that to be a modern marketer you'll need to embrace Agile. Marketers, however, cannot rely exclusively on Agile for managing their work. Instead, we must integrate Agile methods with more traditional methodologies that support a broader range of practice. In this chapter, we'll look at two innovation methods that are representative of the critical practices that do not fit into Agile methods but that must be reconciled with Agile. I also offer a strategy exercise designed to help promote greater strategic alignment between marketing and product management.

And by the way, marketing isn't the only organization that must employ traditional methods. Product management must, as well. That's because marketing and product management share a broader scope of practice than all other organizations, and that is inherently strategic. Moreover, they must align holistically to lead the business together. As Peter Drucker observed, these two groups are distinguished as the sole drivers of the business.

Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.¹

Development can rely more exclusively on Agile because it is more focused on implementation and reaction to immediate feedback than planning. In ...