Some tips, tricks, and traps from creative leaders on using Agile principles on a creative team.
Following up from my previous post surveying creative leaders about how they use Agile processes on their teams, I also asked them for advice on how other creative teams can leverage Agile principles in their creative workflow. Here are some of the tips, tricks, and traps creative leaders shared with me:
“Embed your team with the marketing team and become completely aligned. When fighting for funding or budget, paint the end state and work together on the business value to make it happen.”
“Use daily stand-ups only to discuss impediments or changes to projects that may require escalation or bringing in others from the team. Stand ups should never last more than 15 minutes. Don’t use daily standups for brainstorming. Instead, have separate brainstorming sessions and if any major changes to projects results from those session, highlight those changes briefly in the stand up. Then you can loop in specific people offline, in necessary.”
“For digital work, adhere to the concept of a minimal viable product. Get it out the door to a small test population (after going through legal/compliance reviews) and use that to inform changes and rapid iteration.”
“Try to build teams of dedicated resources. If you team has shared resources who have responsibilities to other teams as well, it will split their time and double their agile meetings, creating a rift in the team’s culture.”
“Make Agile processes work for YOUR team. It is a flexible concept, but it will only work if you’re using it in a manner that addresses your own team’s needs and abilities. Creatives are NOT developers, and forcing creative to work like developers NEVER works.”
About the author: Debbie Kennedy is former Head of Advertising Operations with CarMax, and is currently Creative Director for Capstone Production Group, and CEO of Write for You, a Digital Content and Creative Workflow Consulting Firm based in Durham, North Carolina. She’s been a power user and advocate of inMotionNow since 2014.