Chapter 5Alignment
Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.
—Peter Drucker, American management consultant, educator, and author
Many marketing organizations start their Agile journey by getting Agile training. Perhaps a few people attend Scrum master training and become certified; perhaps the entire team gets training on Scrum or Kanban. Learning the Agile methodologies is critical, but it is not the first discipline. Step one? Get alignment in three areas:
- Why are we adopting Agile?
- What problems do we intend to solve?
- What must we keep (not lose) as we adopt Agile?
- What does success look like? How will we measure our progress?
- Are we aligned with business?
- Are we meeting the needs of the rest of the business?
- How are we contributing to the strategic goals of the business?
- What are the most critical measures of marketing success?
- Are we aligned with our customers?
- Who are we selling to?
- What problems are we solving for them?
- How do our customers buy?
Alignment on “Why Agile?”
When you begin your Agile journey, everyone in the marketing organization must be able to answer the questions, “Why are we adopting Agile? What do we intend to achieve?” If you're already practicing Agile, everyone must be able to answer the question, “Why do we practice Agile?” Leaders often fail to answer these questions for themselves, communicate the answers to their team, and get buy-in.
We often arrive at Agile marketing after experiencing the frustration ...
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