The Agile Marketer

Chapter 8Implementing Agile: Key Considerations

Embracing Agile entails conforming to a set of working practices across your team. These practices keep the team focused and efficient and foster collaboration. But getting people to approach their work in an Agile fashion will not happen overnight, especially if you're managing an established team. To succeed, you'll need a plan that addresses:

• How you'll leverage internal Agile experts.
• What external training will be required.
• Which method you'll initially adopt.
• When you'll evaluate your initial implementation.

You'll also want to assign a business owner on your team who can dive deeper into key methods such as Scrum and Kanban and manage your team's transformation. (This may be a role you take on personally.) This business lead will be the primary point of contact between your team and others who are leveraging Agile. This individual should also make it clear from the get-go—to your team and to other groups—that an Agile transformation takes time, commitment, and investment. This is why evaluating the initial implementation is so important.

Forging C-Suite Partnerships

Consulting with internal experts, like the CTO or CPO (if your company has them) and their teams is a great place to start. They will have already done some Agile tailoring to fit their method to your company culture. Don't pay attention to the hype that analyst firms have created over the relationship between CMOs and CTOs. Analysts love to harp on the fact ...