Using agile development methodologies in marketing is becoming more prevalent. This presentation defines scrum and describes how it's used in practice at HubSpot to gain greater transparency, manage prioritization better and achieve more predictability in our marketing efforts.

1. Marketing the Agile Way
Applying Scrum Outside of Development
Kirsten Knipp, Director of Product Marketing
@kirstenpetra

2. The next 45 minutes …
• What is Scrum / Agile?
• Why & how does HubSpot apply Agile
in marketing?
• Workshop it for your organization!

3. • Waterfall … big project .. .issues …
• Not flexible
• Long Lead Times
Scope creep
• Cannot shift to market
• Black box
Black Box
Inflexible
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4. • RUGBY IMAGE
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5. • Question mark
What is scrum?
Anyone using it?
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6. What does Wikipedia say?
Scrum is an iterative, incremental methodology for project management often seen
in agile software development, a type of software engineering.
Although Scrum was intended for management of software development projects, it
can be used to run software maintenance teams, or as a general project/program
management approach.
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7. Your Scrum Glossary …adapted for marketing …
Roles
• Scrum Team: Product Owner, ScrumMaster & Team
• Product Owner (PO): Responsible for maintaining the
Backlog by representing the interests of the stakeholders.
• Scrum Master: The person responsible for the Scrum
process & implementing properly.
• Team: A cross-functional group of people responsible for
managing itself to develop the product.
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8. Scrum Glossary cont’d …adapted for marketing …
Activities & Artifacts
• Team Backlog: A prioritized list of high level requirements.
• Sprint: A time period (typically 2–4 weeks) in which work occurs on a set of
backlog items that the Team has committed.
• Sprint Backlog: A prioritized list of tasks to be completed during the sprint.
• Epic: A large effort split up into multiple related user stories.
• User Story: A detailed description of a task with the stakeholders in mind.
• Sprint Burn Down: Daily progress chart for a Sprint over the sprint’s
length.
• Impediment/Blocker: Anything that prevents a team member from
performing work as efficiently as possible.
• Planning Poker: The team estimates effort for the stories in the backlog.
The PO uses estimates to prioritize & forecast stories based on velocity.
• Point Scale: Point system, used to describe task difficulty, without assigning
actual hours. HubSpot uses the Fibonacci sequence (1,2,3,5,8…).
• Success Criteria: The exit-criteria to determine if a task is complete.
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9. Agile Marketing @HubSpot
Marketing Leadership
Macro Goals: Lead Gen, Conversion & Brand
TOFU MOFU
Services
Middle of Marketplace
Top of the Funnel the Funnel
Biweekly / Monthly Sprints – Sync’d with Dev & Sales
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10. Why?
Transparency
Prioritization
Predictability
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11. Sample Team Home & Backlog: MOFU
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12. Sample Monthly Sprint Backlog: MOFU
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Stories
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13. How we poker …
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14. Anatomy of a User Story
Measureable results.
What defines ‘done’?
Success Points
Prio User Story Owner
Criteria & Status
1 As a HubSpot Sales Person, I need a way Prototype Kirsten 5
to prioritize my active trials so that I can trial alert
connect with prospects most likely to buy. launched,
• Define ‘active trial’ Sales
• Create HubSpot + SFDC Report feedback
• Publish to Sales-Viewable Dashboard for S32
• Create Automated Weekly Email How difficult is this
task? Velocity &
A specific description of a task – from the points get refined
stakeholder perspective. Should start with over time.
“As a _____ (stakeholder), I want to _____
(task), so that _____ (desired result).
List specific activities, if story becomes too
large, consider ways you could break it up.
Ensure dependencies are noted.
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15. How we standup …
15 Minutes Daily
• Yesterday
• Today
• Blockers
• Cross Pollination
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16. How we report out …
Monthly Science Fair
Sprint Review
Sprint Commit
Check it out!
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17. MOFU: S30
Stories Points MOFU Webinars
Planned 190 •5 Mary Group Demos
Deferred 9 •Managed Ollie Group Demos
Incomplete 10 •Launched 1st Group Trial Call
Bonus 10 Lead Nurturing to Drive Trials
Completed 181 Countdown to 2011 Campaign
3000+ Free Trials!
Engaging with more
content

18. Content Creation! 10 Blogs, 2 Case Studies & More
10 MOFU Blog Posts with 11,000+ Page Views!
2011 Revenue Goals: How Much Traffic Do You Need to Succeed?
Final Prize! Play to Win an iPod Touch with Marketing Surprises
3 Metrics to Prove to Your Boss That Social Media Marketing is Working
Win Marketing Prizes in @HubSpot's Countdown to 2011
4 Metrics to Measure Your Best Leads
3 Reasons Landing Pages Should be Free
What is a 301 Redirect and Why Should You Care?
4 Ways to Segment Your Best Leads
6 Key Pieces of Lead Intelligence
5 Marketing Graphs to Send Your CMO Every Month
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19. Home Page Testing Continues!
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20. Local HUGs Alpha Site + 2011 Venue Narrowed
#1 for HubSpot
Late September Mid August
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21. What do we get …
Transparency
Prioritization
Predictability
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22. How could you apply agile?
• Audit a dev scrum team at your company …
• Pick one project to define, poker & execute using scrum
• Draft a team to go agile for a few months
• Get the whole organization using agile
Workshop It! Cheatsheat provided …
• Groups of 3-5
• Pick a project or team
• Define a user story & success criteria
• Discuss how you’d start evaluating points
• How would you execute?
• What cultural barriers might you encounter?
• Could this increase transparency?
• Could this help you prioritize?
• Could this improve predictability?
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23. • Rugby shot
Questions?
• Twitter handle @kirstenpetra
• Question mark …
• Interacting …
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