Lean into Agile Marketing

Agile is about more than just development.

Agile is a type of project management usually used in software development. Lean is a production process that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal, other than the creation of value for the customer, to be wasteful.

How does this relate to marketing?

According to the Agile Blog, Lean and Agile are the perfect pair of tools to meet market release planning requirements.  While very different from development, marketing teams do face some of the same same challenges as development teams. Agile and Lean process improvements can go a long way to alleviating process roadblocks and improve intelligent planning.

Using Agile and Lean processes in marketing plans requires:

• A strategic look at current processes.
• An evaluation (ORID) to analyze facts, feelings, and implications and make intelligent decisions.
• Alignment with company strategy.
• Polling of stakeholders.
• Quarterly planning.
• Creation of a task board.
• Two week iteration planning.
• Daily stand up meetings.
• Revamping of the plan as needed.
• Inordinate patience as processes change.

Applying Agile and Lean to marketing planning, will ultimately increase productivity, decrease waste and help your organization to market successfully.