Editorial
The Gist
- Agile remains popular. As marketers report near universal positive experiences.
- Hybrid frameworks are down. For the first time in seven years, they are not the most popular way to be agile for marketers.
- Huge challenges remain. As the difference between what support agile marketers get and what they want only widens.
As I reviewed the data from the 7th annual State of Agile Marketing Report, I asked myself the same question I ask every year: What’s new here? Let's take a deep dive into our agile marketing findings.
As it turns out, quite a few things jumped out at us this year, and I think they have major ramifications for marketers of all kinds.
The Takeaways You Need to Know About
While adoption rates have slowed, reflecting the reality that there are fewer non-agile functions out there today, marketers are still very happy with the value they get from agile. It remains widely used and 98% of those who have adopted agile practices reported successful outcomes and 83% having a generally positive experience with agile.
By contrast, only 2% reported having a somewhat negative experience and not a single person reported a very negative experience.
Support Is Critical
One of the biggest learnings from seven years of these reports is just how crucial support is for agile marketing success. It seems that more organizations are taking that lesson to heart as 94% of teams report being supported over the past 12 months.
But that positive news starts to get more complicated when I break down the types of support teams are getting and what they themselves say is most valuable. Here there are still major gaps that should be addressed for organizations to get the most out of their agile teams.
Related Article: Agility Is No Longer Optional in Business
Agile Marketing Teams Use Shockingly Few Agile Practices
While I'm always reminding people that agile is about mindset far more than it is about practices like standups or visualization tools. That said, I was still shocked to see that not a single agile technique was used by more than 50% of all teams.
From sprint planning to WIP limits, so many of these techniques are quite valuable when used correctly. Most agile teams would benefit from most of the techniques on this list, so there’s clearly a lot of added value they’re missing out on. So I encourage you to look more closely at things on this list you don’t already do and consider incorporating them into your agile workflow.
Related Article: How an Agile Marketing Process Makes Good Marketing Teams Great
Too Many Agile Teams Still Struggle With Change
When I asked people what words they associate with agile, the top result was “flexibility.” People rightfully associate agile with the ability to effectively adapt to change as it happens.
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But then what explains the fact that 37% of agile teams report difficulties managing unplanned work and another 33% say their plans change too often?
The Impact of Unplanned Work Requests
Clearly too few agile team leaders are protecting their teams from unplanned work requests. It’s important these leaders be empowered to tell stakeholders “no” or “not until the next sprint.” Otherwise, even the best agile processes can easily get bogged down, creating the challenges I saw in this year’s report.
So yes, while agile is built on flexibility, it also requires some structure to protect against the kind of abrupt changes that really disrupt work.
Related Article: Growing Beyond Agile: Adaptability for Today’s Marketing Landscape
The Agile Support Gap Remains
One major takeaway from this year’s report was that a substantial and important gap remains between what kinds of support agile marketers find valuable and what they’re actually getting.
For example, 78% found “train the trainer” programs valuable. Another 74% found agile coaches valuable.
But how many agile teams actually received this kind of training and coaching? Only about one-third to one-fourth, respectively. Without this kind of training and coaching, agile teams often struggle to build a robust agile mindset and ensure they’re addressing challenges with agile principles without this kind of training.
In other words, this is a major area where most agile teams can improve. I highly recommend looking at these charts to get some idea of what kinds of support your team should be investing in to best optimize your performance.
The Big Framework Shift
For the past six years, each State of Agile Marketing Report has found that hybrid frameworks are the most popular. I've always attributed this to their excellent flexibility. The ability to pick some of the best parts of Kanban and Scrum before adapting them to your organization can get you amazing results.
But now, for the first time ever, equal numbers of marketers reported using Scrum, Kanban and Hybrid frameworks. So what’s causing this shift after so many years of relative consistency?
One hint comes from the data I mentioned earlier showing how few agile teams were getting training and coaching. Hybrid frameworks are powerful but they require more training and coaching to get right because they need to be customized.
It’s possible that more teams are realizing that they won’t have access to the resources they need to successfully implement a hybrid framework, so they’re turning to more structured ones like Kanban and Scrum.
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