Is the phrase, “Marketing needs to be more Agile” the “What’s your dot-com strategy?” of this generation? It sure sounds that way.

We recently discussed what we’ve learned about Agile for Marketing by a very senior industry analyst whose name and research company affiliation you would recognize immediately and that person’s research assistant. They told me many CMO’s are wondering what “being Agile” means and what it specifically means for marketing. Hubbub abounds, and even HBR did its best, a somewhat breathless-but-vapid set of articles on the topic. And yet, as we point out in a recent article, few truly understand what it is about, and even fewer can do it.

The bottom line is that Agile, real Agile, the stuff of legends, can be used by marketers, and when it is done well it changes the game of marketing. You’re about to hear proof of that.

Why should this matter, being able to use Agile in marketing? Because the marketing function is one of the most chaotic functions in any organization. When Agile doesn’t work for part of a company, yet works for other parts, it is usually because of chaos within the workflows of the departments that are failing. Agile always seems to fail in the marketing function…that’s where there is a lot of chaos. Workflow-based chaos comes in many forms — We’ve compiled a short list here of the types of chaos found in a NOCO, or Naturally-Occurring Chaotic Organization.

But does Marketing need Agile? Definitely yes. One of our clients (Insperity, a $3.8bn B2B financial services company) used our techniques to transform their marketing services organization. We have a case study in the works, for publication later this month, but better than reading, you can actually listen to their two top marketers talk about how it really changed the way they operate, and their ability to impact the organization. Click here to read our podcast post and hear them speak of, “connecting the dots across the enterprise.”