Agile Marketing Resource

Most of the agile marketing discussions Ive seen on blogs and elsewhere on the web focus on the use of agile methods for producing advertising, content marketing, social media programs and other types of marketing communications. Thats all well and good of course, but there is much more to marketing than just marketing communications. Product management is a marketing function of particular interest to me and I thought it would be helpful to post about the use of agile methods by product managers.

Im a vocal proponent of agile methodology in general and Ibelievethat agile marketing must play an increasingly significant role in the full spectrum of marketing activities people and organizations engage in. The full impact of hybrid matrixed groups working in short time-frames with more flexibility and less reliance on dogmatic and highly structured formal plans has yet to be seen.

The value of highly focused cycles of metric analysis and rapid adjustment seems to me to be every bit as well suited to product management and product marketing functions as they are to social, mobile, PR, advertising and other types of marketing communications . Lets face it, agile methods support and propel the adaptive processes required across the broad range of business functions in general today and they can certainly be applied with great rigor to the entire spectrum of marketing processes including product management.

Product is one of the core components of every brand and certainly products are a brands most tangible manifestation.Products that fail to adjust appropriately and respond well to changes in the marketplace will tend lose relevancy and value. Products that are managed in an agile manner in the ongoing process of adaptation (evolution) will tend to gain value. Please forgive my use of the obligatory Charles Darwin quote.

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change .

~ Charles Darwin

So why havent we heard more about best-practices for agile marketing being applied to a broader range of the full spectrum ofmarketingfunctions including product management ? Actually I suspect that there is much more activity in this area than meets the eye. The adoption of agile project management is clearly growing rapidly, putting pressure on traditional (waterfall) models and methods of project managementto such an extent that recently PMI, the folks who issue the highly coveted PMP (Project Management Professional) certification have finally begun to offer educational programs, testing and formal certifications in agile project management . This is a significant shift in that historically rigid and formal domain and indicates that we are only just now starting to see the effect that a more widespread understanding and utilization of agile models and methods will have on business in general.

In fact a growing number of product managers and product management organizaitons are doing agile marketing , but in that particularly specialized realm they are often more likely to refer to it as agile project management than agile marketing . My point is not to quibble about terminology, nomenclature or the buzz-word du jour . Rather I simply want to try to steer at least some of the conversational momentum away from getting too hung-up on the somewhat narrowly used term agile marketing (with its often assumed focus on communications) and direct more attention to the widespreadphenomenonof agile methodology in business at large and product management in particular. In my estimation, thats agile marketing too!

I found a very interesting post from way back in 2009 by Dean Leffingwell called A Contemporary Framework for Agile Product Management in the Enterprise . In the post Mr. Leffingwell contends (I think rightly so) that there has been increasing disenchantment with traditional waterfall methods of development by product managers and that this is, at least in part, fueling interest in shifting to a more agile approach.

Even in organizations where product development is still largely managed in a traditional waterfall manner by manufacturing departments, product managers may still find enormous value in using agile methods to manage their responsibilities.

Product management encompasses a complex range of functions; life-cycle management, development of road-maps, differentiation, naming and branding conventions, positioning, development and maintenance of value propositions andmessaging architectures, packaging, promotions, competitive intelligence, monitoring of market requirements, opportunities for line extensions, voice-of-customer embodiment, business-case andfeasibility studies, manufacturing and margin optimization, etc. Much of this is already done in an iterative way anyhow. Formalizing the iterations into agile sprints makes sense from apurelypragmatic standpoint and can clearly lead to higher quality output and outcomes.

Take a look at these excellent presentations for more food for thought on the topic of agile marketing methods in the realm of product management:

Finally, to conclude this post, let me pose a few questions and solicit your comments.

• Shouldntagile marketing methods and the values that inform them be applied to a broader range of marketing functions than just traditional and digital marketing communications, advertising and promotion?

• How have you used agile practices to improve and optimize product management in your company?

• Is it agile marketing and its principles that are really championing awareness and instigating far-flung organizational innovations and adoption of agile methods, or in fact isnt agile marketing just one of a large number of functional areas of business that have been radically impacted by generally increased awareness and understanding of the benefits and advantages of a more agile approach to business adaptation in general that were first adopted and embraced by software development and IT organizations?

• Finally, how do you expect or imagine agile methods to infiltrate and change other parts of your companys marketing operations; finance, manufacturing, HR, etc?

Ill be looking forward to your comments!