Today though it\u2019s not just those involved with software development that can benefit from an agile approach. Indeed, I\u2019ve personally delivered coaching for organizations across a range of industries - from an events management company through logistics and automotive firms to universities and membership institutions - to support their successful transition to agile ways of working.<\/p>\n
\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n Growth hacking guide<\/strong><\/p>\n Adopting an agile way of working is a key component of 'growth hacking'. Take your site from strength to strength and optimize your online marketing.<\/p>\n Access the Growth hacking guide<\/a><\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n Here are seven elements of agile you can apply to your projects - along with advice on how to tailor these to suit your specific requirements - to ensure you remain ahead of the curve and extract the maximum value from the methodology.<\/p>\n The key to agile\u2019s increased flexibility is an iterative approach to planning. Essentially, this means that instead of creating a comprehensive blueprint at the outset of a project (when understanding is at its lowest), planning happens continuously, through a process of on-going inspection and adaptation. This enables the direction of the project to change and evolve as understanding grows and further details of requirements emerge, as well as in response to current market conditions, stakeholder input, and user feedback.<\/p>\n In a marketing context, there are several initiatives that benefit from iterative planning. By incorporating regular reviews into an on-going promotional campaign, for example, you\u2019ll be able to quickly drop activities that aren\u2019t yielding results and instead re-invest in more productive areas. You could also apply an agile approach to an upcoming product launch; reviewing the priority of associated tasks as new requirements come to light.<\/p>\n For a practical demonstration of iterative planning, check out this version of the popular game of battleships<\/a>, which shows how the approach works and the benefits it offers.<\/p>\n As with planning, agile\u2019s approach to delivery is also iterative and focuses on the completion of individual features and tasks so that projects can go live at virtually any point as a lightweight deliverable or Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Different agile frameworks manage iterative delivery in different ways though, and the one that best suits you will depend on the specific requirements of your organization and industry.<\/p>\n You may, for example, want to adopt a Scrum<\/a> approach, where work is completed in short, contained stages known as \u2018sprints\u2019. Typically lasting two weeks, working features are delivered and demonstrated to stakeholders at the end of every sprint, to speed up feedback loops, minimize wasted investment, and provide greater control over budgets.<\/p>\n In the Kanban framework by contrast, a prioritized list of tasks (or \u2018backlog\u2019) is used to manage activity, with limits placed on work in progress to ensure that the most valuable items are delivered first, and that bottlenecks are identified and resolved at an early stage.<\/p>\n Of course, you could also adopt a hybrid model that combines these two approaches - choosing specific aspects from each to create something that\u2019s uniquely tailored to your needs.<\/p>\n While not exclusive to the approach, user stories do align closely with agile\u2019s core principles and can help maximize the value being delivered through your projects.<\/p>\n User stories take the form \u201cAs [user], I want to [task], so that [motivation]\u201d, which ensures that requirements are expressed with direct reference to the user needs that are being fulfilled, and also makes them ideal for communicating these requirements to all relevant project stakeholders in a format that\u2019s clear and easy-to-understand.<\/p>\n If this specific format doesn\u2019t work for you though, what matters is that you communicate requirements in a way that maintains the qualities of a good user story. The INVEST mnemonic can prove useful here:<\/p>\n Tasks may, therefore, be \u201cdraft a blog post\u201d, \u201cidentify valuable PPC terms\u201d, or \u201cpresent the business case for a new strategic investment\u201d - but there\u2019s no limit to their potential diversity.<\/p>\n Breaking your requirements down into clear, contained user stories (or similar tasks) will make it much easier to assess the effort needed to complete each unit of work; supporting and streamlining any subsequent estimation activities. Additionally, agile promotes a range of techniques to help safeguard the accuracy of estimates, such as planning poker<\/a> and affinity estimation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Once estimated, you\u2019ll also want to prioritize your stories according to business value, although of course exactly how this value is defined will depend on your specific goals and objectives. However you choose to prioritize though, it\u2019s important that - in line with agile\u2019s iterative process - you regularly review your prioritized list as your project progresses.<\/p>\n This will deliver you a backlog of tasks that are always up-to-date so that you can be confident the most valuable features are being worked on at all times. It also enables you to amend your backlog in response to any feedback received - which leads me nicely on to\u2026<\/p>\n Providing team members and the wider stakeholder group with the chance to regularly assess project progress, demonstrations, retrospectives, and stand-ups are all key features of the Scrum framework. Let\u2019s look at each of these in turn:<\/p>\n While the techniques listed so far all undoubtedly offer value to organizations both within and beyond the software development industry, truly unlocking the power of agile requires a cultural shift right across your team or teams. Fostering effective collaboration, in particular, is key, as this will provide you with the insight needed to keep activity aligned with your strategic goals and ensure you\u2019re addressing real-world requirements and use contexts.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important therefore to look at how well your team communicates and works together currently, and put in place any training activities to ensure they have both the understanding and skills needed to manage these activities. Additionally, tools such as instant messaging systems and project management solutions can also support productive communication (although face-to-face will always be one of the most effective channels!), and you may wish to consider introducing testing activities into your processes, to give you end-user feedback at an early stage.<\/p>\n To ensure projects are delivered as efficiently as possible, many agile frameworks recommend limiting core team size to between three and six; a model that can help numerous industries to maintain focus and velocity. Traditionally, of course, this \u2018core team\u2019 referred to developers producing web and software solutions, but can be applied to anything from salespeople making calls through to content strategists defining and producing copy.<\/p>\n There are also typically several additional functions surrounding this core team that it may be beneficial to introduce (you can even assign these roles to existing team members, provided they\u2019re informed of the scope of and reasons behind their responsibilities):<\/p>\n The presence of these two roles does not mean, however, that the team should be micro-managed. Indeed, the goal should be to build teams that are empowered to take ownership of tasks and make decisions, while maintaining on-going communication and collaboration to keep the project aligned with your strategic goals.<\/p>\n1. Iterative planning<\/h3>\n
2. Iterative delivery<\/h3>\n
3. User stories<\/h3>\n
\n
4. Estimation and prioritization<\/h3>\n
5. Demonstrations, retrospectives, and stand-ups<\/h3>\n
\n
6. Communication and collaboration<\/h3>\n
7. Team structures and roles<\/h3>\n
\n
Enhance your team's marketing skills<\/h3>
![\"Enhance](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Best-Practice-x2.png\")
<\/div><\/span><\/p>\n