Be Smart About Being Agile

Walter is an established and highly experienced Project Management Expert with broad experience in establishing and standardizing global project management practices for multiple streams of projects. A PMP and ScrumMaster Certified Professional, Walter helps establish governance process to strategic and tactical IT and digital projects for all enterprises, and guiding all aspects of PMO initiatives and implementations.

I was recently involved in an onsite client meeting and workshop where the goal of coming together was to hash out new process improvements in the way that our agency team works together with the client’s marketing team. We did some great leg work and came into the workshop prepared with some great suggestions.

I made it to about slide 5 before I heard the CMO state that “we are not interested in waterfall. We need to be agile.” Although I was caught off guard initially, I refocused and asked a simple question; “What does being agile mean to you?”

His answer clearly insinuated that being agile meant getting results cheaper and faster. I cannot say that I was surprised by the answer, but it’s clear that the term “agile” has become a common buzz word in the marketing world—where its definition has become unclear.

There are many positives to using agile methods over a traditional or waterfall method. Some of the agile methods most commonly used include Scrum, Scrum/XP Hybrid, Kanban and XP. The use of any of these agile methods leans toward a faster delivery of results, at a more frequent pace and in a more cost-conscious manner.

However, not every project is best suited to be delivered in an agile way. Typically, the best projects for agile are those with aggressive deadlines, a reasonable level of complexity and …

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Published at Thu, 15 Mar 2018 04:00:00 +0000