“Marketers understandably prize agility as their worlds spin faster. But they have to be very careful what they wish for in embracing agile as a methodology. The potential payoff is transformational, but three all-too-common mistakes can derail the marketing organization altogether.”

“The first killer is thinking that marketers should embrace “tech agile,” as Jane Hiscock recommends in her Tuesday post “Is Agile Too Agile for Marketing: F500 CMOs Weigh In.” That’s like telling someone to wear a hockey uniform (and skates) to play basketball — good tools, wrong application. “

In my article published on January 12, 2017, 3 Killer Mistakes on MediaPost, I expand this thesis and focus on how a limited managerial mindset results in poorly-implemented Agile, or even outright abandonment due to sheer frustration around how poor of a fit “Software Agile” is for marketers and their agencies.

The greatest irony in this is that the marketplace itself causes marketers to be confused. The marketing dollars spent on selling Agile — mostly by software tools and Scrum Master training vendors — imply that “becoming Agile” requires only one or both of these things. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Truly becoming Agile requires a deep managerial and organizational transformation that few agency managers or execs have experience with. It can be done, but it requires a different perspective than quick fixes and software-in-a-box.

Read the full article on MediaPost as published on the 12th of January 2017 here.