When Evan asked me to speak today, he asked me not to talk about agile marketing in general or discuss what I typically do. Instead, he wanted me to share some tips and tricks that I have seen in my work with clients. That’s what I’m going to do today. But before I dive in, I want to put my remarks into context.
This is a diagram I call the Six Disciplines of Agile Marketing. I put this together two or three years ago to describe some of the disciplines or areas of improvement that people implementing agile marketing are looking for. They want to improve the process by which they manage marketing, enhance collaboration, and align teams effectively.
Focusing on Collaboration
Starting at 10,000 feet, I want to zero in on one particular area—collaboration. When I talk to clients about improving collaboration in marketing, I discuss a number of different ways to do so, but it all starts with communication.
If you hold daily stand-ups—or even just two or three times a week—it significantly improves communication among team members. Posting Kanban boards, whether electronically or in shared physical locations, helps people understand what others are working on. Additionally, techniques like Scrum of Scrums, where teams that have already met in their own daily stand-ups send an ambassador to meet with other teams, can further enhance communication and alignment.
While there are many techniques to improve collaboration, I want to focus on two specific ones: role clarity job maps and project scope and charter templates.
Role Clarity Job Maps
I wish I could say I originated the concept of a job map, but I didn’t. This idea came from a visit that one of my clients, T-Mobile, made to Seattle Children’s Hospital. When they walked into the hospital, they saw a wall that visually represented the entire marketing team. This one visual helped them understand who was on the team, their roles, and how they worked together.
Here’s how Seattle Children’s structured their job maps:
- In the upper left, they displayed the person’s name and title.
- They included a short section about themselves, including a favorite quote or an accomplishment they were particularly proud of.
- They shared their happy place—somewhere they felt comfortable.
- They listed “Things I Own”, which included the parts of the marketing process they were responsible for. For example, managing the research homepage or overseeing content strategy.
- The second column, “Skills”, listed their particular expertise so others knew what they could come to them for help with.
- The final section, “Things I Support”, outlined the visible outputs of their work, such as internal and external research communications and newsletters.
When T-Mobile returned from this visit, they were excited about many things they had seen, including the job maps. They modified the concept to fit their own culture. For instance, they changed “Things I Own” to “What I Manage” because, in T-Mobile’s culture, saying you “own” something implied you were keeping it to yourself rather than collaborating.
Here’s an example of a T-Mobile job map:
- They kept the top section with a photo and personal details.
- They changed the phrasing to fit their culture.
- They added T-Mobile branding—you can’t walk around T-Mobile without seeing magenta everywhere.
- They included fun personal touches, like nicknames or aliases. For example, Nicole, who has three sons, listed her alias as “Mother of Dragons”.
After a few months, the first group using the job maps decided to iterate on them. They shifted the focus from outputs to outcomes. This aligns with agile principles—focusing on customer and business outcomes rather than just deliverables.
For example:
- Customer Outcomes: Satisfaction, engagement.
- Business Outcomes: Gross adds (new accounts in T-Mobile terms).
Project Scope and Charter Templates
The second technique I want to discuss is combining project clarity. As we started working on major cross-functional projects, we realized the importance of clear scope and goals—not just among the team members but also within senior management.
In particular, we found that agreement needed to be reached at the middle manager level. While it was easy to get executive vice presidents on board, their direct reports also needed alignment. Without that, we’d hit roadblocks.
The technique we used was the Project Scope and Charter Template. This one-page document outlined everything needed to define the project, including:
- Project Scope: What’s in scope and what’s out of scope.
- Problem Statement: What problem are we trying to solve?
- Business Impact: What does this project mean for the business?
- Current State vs. Desired Future State: Where are we now, and where do we want to be?
- Success Metrics: What does success look like?
This simple document was incredibly effective in getting everyone on the same page for new projects. It helped prevent misunderstandings, ensured alignment early on, and streamlined decision-making.
Final Thoughts
These two techniques—role clarity job maps and project scope and charter templates—are just a couple of ways to improve collaboration in agile marketing teams. By making roles clearer and ensuring alignment on project goals, organizations can work more effectively and efficiently.
Thank you for allowing me to share these tips today!