The advantages of Agile for development teams are well-known, but case studies with business teams are rarer. Sometimes applying Agile to business teams can feel like forcing a round peg a square hole. Is Agile the best solution for every team?
Marcello and Nicole share their experiences applying Agile practices to a cross-functional marketing team at SilverStripe. For business teams, applying Agile can lead to higher productivity, better cross-team alignment and stronger resilience. Agile gives marketers an edge - helping them adapt to the pace of change in tech, focus on results not outputs and become more data-driven. However not all Agile techniques translate naturally outside development. Applying Agile to business teams requires experimentation and continuous improvement. It's a process that comes with growing pains especially as marketers tend to embrace perfection over iterating!
Learn what worked, what didn't, and mistakes to avoid.
10. SilverStripe (the really short version)
● 78 people in Wellington, Auckland & London
● Founded by 3 Wellingtonians, privately owned
● Company values - aligned with Agile principles
○ Continuous improvement over perfection
○ Collaboration over control
11. SilverStripe (the really short version)
● Bespoke web projects + products
● SilverStripe Open Source CMS - 110,000+ websites
● Common Web Platform for NZ Government
● Amazon Cloud Platform-as-a-Service
12. Marketing at SilverStripe
● Branding / positioning
● Lead generation
● Product research
● Market validation
● Sales messaging
15. “It will be the single hardest and most-
-rewarding role you ever hold.-
-There will be times you want to give up,-
-but in the end you’ll love them and love-
-being a product owner” -
- Clarion Cloughan, Head of Engineering, Xero
16. Agile + marketing challenges
● Specialisation e.g. analytics
● Fixed deadlines e.g. events
● Recurring tasks
● Traditional silo thinking
● External dependencies
M
17. Marketing evolution
● Marketing Manager - 1 person alone
● Storytellers - big cross functional team
● Neuron boosters + Rainmakers (two separate teams -
community dev and marketing)
● Rainmakers (small design oriented team)
● CommuniKats (marketing focused team with PO)
19. 5 things that worked for us...
1. Give the team a mission
Set clear short term goals (OKRs)
2. Become more data-driven
3. Cross-functional teams
4. Co-locate marketing team with product team
Design for collaboration
Processes for knowledge sharing
5. Never stop experimenting (improving) how you work
M
20. 1. Give the team a mission
and set clear goals
21. Objectives & Key Results
● Used by Google, Linkedin, Zynga
● Quarterly goals linked to 1 - 5 year plans
● Connects company/team/individual goals
“[OKRs] are a tool for motivating and aligning people to work together. They
increase transparency, accountability and empowerment." ~ Angus Davis, CEO,
Swipely
Google Ventures - video
22. ● Knowing the most important
things to track
● Connects day-to-day with
bigger picture
● Provides common goals
across teams
OKRs provide purpose
23. Don’t rely on opinions and gut feelings
2. Become data-driven
26. Cross functional teams, Pi-shaped people
CodingEvents AnalyticsOnboardingCommunity
Front end
Back end
CMS UI
UX
Blogs
Docs
Lessons
Meetups
Design
Support
27. Cross functional teams, T-shaped people
Content
marketingSocial
Digital
marketing
SEO /
SEMAnalytics
Marketing
Automation
Community
Wide breadth of knowledge across overlapping disciplines
Distribution
Buying journey
Content types
Audience
Brand strategy
Deep knowledge,
experience and
ability in one (or a
few) fields
29. Get people and teams to work together:
4. Designing for collaboration
30. Real collaboration
● Co-location with product and sales
● Shared Sprint Demos (Show & Tells)
● Involving other teams in backlog refinement
● Culture of knowledge sharing
● Setting common goals
37. Scrum
○ Introduce Agile thinking to a team (breaking down
work, prioritising etc.)
○ Deadlines for delivery when team have problems
completing work
38. Kanban
○ Mapping the current process is easy to start with
○ Team with strong specialisations and individual tasks
○ Experienced team where work don’t fit in Sprint cycles
43. Yes! Agile Marketing Manifesto
● Responding to change over following a plan
● Rapid iterations over Big-Bang campaigns
● Testing and data over opinions and assumptions
● Many small experiments over a few large bets
● Individuals and interactions over one size fits all
● Collaboration over silos and hierarchy
45. Yes!
● Have strong customer focus
● Can “sell” the vision to inside and outside of the team
● Understand market and competition
● Are data-driven
● Collaborate and communicate
46. The future of marketing at SilverStripe
● Marketing reports into Product
● Greater transparency across teams
● Teams split over multiple countries
● More tightly coupled with product teams
47. Nicole v 2.0
Experiments over Perfection
Team engagement over Control
Agile thinking over One-off successes
Head of Product @ SilverStripe
48. Questions?
Marketing & Agile:
Best friends or worst enemies?
Nicole Williams
Head of Product, SilverStripe
Twitter: @envycollect
Marcello Commisso
Agile Practice Coach, BNZ
Contact: marcello@commisso.dk