5 ways to lose your job by "going agile"

 Yes, this is written from personal experience. With previous employer, I went to bat for the benefits of Agile project management. Though leaving was not a direct result of that effort, the relationship capital that I spent had a huge impact on my ability to add value. Eventually, I was clearly unhappy, they were clearly unhappy and we fairly amicably went our separate ways.

That said, the remainder of this post won't be written it in the first person. Doing so would  introduce too much of my own biases. Also, some of these points are slightly exaggerated from the actual occurrence so don't assume I'm as dumb as all that. 

I hope is that these hard-won lessons can be helpful to you in creating the change you want to see in your organization.  Regardless of  who you are or where you work, either as a project manager or team member;  in a large enterprise or a small consulting shop, in digital marketing or software development, I bet there's at least one pitfall I can help you avoid.

1. Complain about the current system

If you’re laboring under something like waterfall, or  a basic lack of project management processes, you can probably see that the grass is greener on the Agile side. If you're really antsy about it, you’ve probably read tons of great material at mountaingoatsoftware.com or maybe agilemarketing.net, and you know that things could be better.

Awesome, you are almost undeniably correct. But so what?

Bitching and moaning about the status quo is not a good way to create organizational change. Instead it’s a great way to create a rift within your team. Some of these people were involved in creating the current processes, conscious or not. Beating up on the these process doesn't make you look smarter than everyone else, it makes you look like you think you're smarter than everyone else.

Negativity begets pessimism. If you focus on what’s not working about your current project management processes, the natural tendency is to look for the downsides of any alternatives as well. Instead, paint a picture of the possibilities that you see for your team going agile.

2. Be stealthy

So, you’re using positivity to draw a compelling vision to get people on your side. Unless you’re an exceptional salesperson, you’re almost certain to get some push back. It can be frustrating. You might be tempted to just put up a taskboard in your office one day, in the hope that the value of making work visible will be immediately appreciated.

That can even work to some extent, it is really cool to actually see all the work in progress and in the backlog. But simply putting up a task board does not an agile team make. Assuming that everyone will follow your lead into agile is actually a very un-agile way of operating.

You’ve drunk the kool-aid and you know things can be better. Unfortunately, the truth is that things won’t get better if you don’t have proper buy in from the rest of your team. Take the time to have the conversations required to secure this buy-in, both above and below you. 

3. Get hung up on the software

When you’re at your most enthusiastic about the potential of transitioning to agile, it’s easy to get caught up in the fun of checking out all the different software tools out there. It is important, but it can be a distraction from the real issues.

A focus on software can easily devolve into a debate between the current “waterfall-y tool” and whichever shiny new “agile tool” you’ve got your eyes on. That’s not where you want the focus of your discussion. It should be about the processes used and cultural practices needed around those processes.

4. Drop balls

There’s nothing like an angry client or executive to put a damper on your efforts to create change. Never mind that things probably weren’t going all that smoothly in the first place; rational or not status quo bias makes it very likely that the blame will be laid at least partially on the transition to agile.

If you’re championing the transition, then you’re placing some of your own credibility on the line. Be aware of this, and be willing to put in the extra time and effort to protect your credibility by staying on top of information and deliverables.

5. Do it in a culture of fear

Take a look at your organization, and your own motivations for wanting to go agile. Maybe the agile manifesto speaks deeply to the kind of environment you’d like to work in. That may not be the case for the people around you. There’s a certain kind of safety in having a silo between you, and the developer two desks over.

Creating an agile culture requires that people step up and take responsibility for the quality of each deliverable (or story) at each stage of the process. Face it, your coworkers might not be cut out for agile.

If this describes your situation, it’s not worth the emotional energy required to fundamentally change the culture. Or more eloquently put:

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

-Warren Buffett

Be open to the idea that Agile will never be a fit for your organization... then polish up your resume.

Doing it right

Having gone in depth about what not to do, here's a very quick list of how it should be done.

• Be humble
• Talk to people one on one about your vision, and what you see in it for them
• Get outside help
• Get training
• Be honest about the pros and cons
• Be patient, now might not be the time for your organization

Also, make sure to do your research, so you know what you're talking about. Here are some good starting points:

Agile Software

agilemanifesto.org
http://www.agilealliance.org/
mountaingoatsoftware.com

Agile Marketing

agilemarketingmanifesto.org

http://agilemarketing.net/

What do you think? Have you had similar experience or difficulty transitioning an organization to Agile practices? Any insights to share about how it should be done? Let us know in the comments.

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- John Mardlin

A Guide to Effectively Managing Your Solo Software Project

This article will help you create some very basic systems for managing your solo software project. It won’t help you decide what projects are good ideas, or successfully market your software, but following its advice will make you more likely to get to a finished product, instead of giving up in despair.

 

Who will find this helpful?

• a hobbyist or pro using their spare time to build something they want
• an entrepreneur building a minimum viable product for a business idea
• a freelancer building a web or mobile app for a client
• anyone who wants to learn by doing

I’m sure many people are already on board with the need for some systems to help guide the creation of their software, but I can literally hear some of your bloodshot underslept eye-balls rolling in their sockets and saying “processes and project management systems are for the office, this is just overhead that gets in the way of getting stuff done".

I beg to differ.

Why you need a system

Even a simple project has multiple moving parts. It may be that you’re capable of keeping track of them all, but that requires effort and costs you brain power, your most precious resource for software development. The reason for this is known as the Zeigarnik Effect:

The Zeigarnik Effect is the tendency to experience intrusive thoughts about an objective that was once pursued and left incomplete (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, pg. 122). The automatic system signals the conscious mind, which may be focused on new goals, that a previous activity was left incomplete. It seems to be human nature to finish what we start and, if it is not finished, we experience dissonance.

The take home is, unfinished tasks will trouble your worried mind.  Storing your tasks somewhere trusted and finishing them as fast (or faster) than you start them, will free your mind for coding.  A simple system will serve this purpose, while introducing minimal extra effort.

1. Getting Started

It may seem obvious to you what your project is; but until you’ve written it down, and explained it to a few people, you can’t be sure that it’s well defined. Figuring out why you’re doing this project and what your goals are doesn’t take long, and will pay dividends down the road.

Create a one-page project charter to outline the scope, objectives and people involved with your project.  Your charter should answer the following questions:

What are your goals?

Get high level, ask yourself WHY you’re doing this, and what success looks like. If it’s a freelance project, establish this with your client.  If it’s a side project, by straight up about it. Are you developing a minimum viable product to test a business idea or is it just something you think would be cool to see or make your life easier.

Who are the stakeholders?

Whose input is important to guide your project to success? Maybe it’s just you, maybe it’s potential customers or a client.  How will you communicate with these people? How much influence will they have?

What will the product enable you to do?

This is akin to an epic user story for your product. Don’t talk about how the product will do what you want,  focus on what you want.

A basic user story format is:  "As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>". This keeps the focus on solving the problem and avoiding tunnel vision around specific features for solving the problem.  For example the epic user story for your product might be “As a bowler, I want to know how what I eat for breakfast correlates with my bowling score, so that I can always eat the right pre-bowling breakfast”

How much time are you willing to spend on this?

Particularly if this is a side project, it will almost inevitably take longer than you think. At the outset, we tend to see the work breakdown at very low resolution. Once you’re face to face with a particular task, you see the fine details and nuances much more closely. In one of the most popular quora answers ever, Michael Wolfe deals with the reasons for this very astutely.

When it’s no longer fun and exciting, will you keep plugging away, or will you accept the sunk costs and move on? Decide beforehand how far down the rabbit hole you’re willing to go.

2. Doing it and Managing it

Planning

Since you’ve already created a scope now you just have to break it down into manageable tasks, ideally things which aren’t much more than what you can do in a given evening or two worth of project time.  Keeping your tasks small will help you to see your progress and feel great when you check something off.   

Tasks that are further down the road, will inevitably be more ambiguous; no problem, as they come closer to being executed on, you can split them up further.

Write each of these tasks on a sticky note, we’re going to use them to fill up your personal kanban board.

Tools

The Kanban Board

Find a visible place in your workspace and put up a whiteboard. Keep your kanban board really simple with three columns: Backlog, Doing and Done.

There are two simple rules for using personal kanban:

1. Keep your work somewhere easy to see
2. Limit your work in progress. Typically no more than 5 tasks at a time in the “Doing” column.   

Both of these rules would make Zeigarnik happy; they ease the burden of how much you have to store in your limited grey matter and put it somewhere you can trust you’ll see it.

Even when there is extra space in your “Doing” column, have a bias towards finishing a task over starting a new one.  Only introduce new tasks into “Doing”, if everything else is stalled, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to move it forward.  

If you’re waiting on a domain transfer, go ahead and start working on wireframing. Don’t create a separate column for stalled or waiting items, even if you’re not working on it right now, it’s occupying precious brain cycles.

Time Tracking

No one likes tracking their time, and most time tracking software makes the process even less fun, but if you keep it simple, it can help to give you very valuable data and improve your sense of how long a task really can take.

Use your personal kanban to track when you moved a task into “Doing”, when you moved it into “Done”, and how many hours you spent on it.  You can do this just by writing it on your stickies like so:

Setting up these tools adds minimal extra time to the initiation of the project, and will pay huge benefits by releasing your mind from having to track all these items and allow you to focus on the execution.

Wireframing

I do believe that wireframing and mapping out the workflow of your product are very much worth your time. We use Moqups, which is really user friendly and takes no time to figure out.

Version Control

Even though it’s just you, using version control will help you to undo your mistakes and create an easily trackable history of your progress.

Git Immersion is a great tutorial for setting up a git system. If you want a cloud based repository, with pretty graphics illustrating your branches and merges, Bitbucket’s free plan should be totally adequate for you.

Execution

Here’s the fun part, I hope that creating the charter and setting up your tools only got you more excited about the awesome code you’re going to write.  

This is your project, it’s not my place to tell you which languages, frameworks and other technologies to use, you know what works for you. Unless this is a project intended to help you learn some new technologies and frameworks, you probably just want to get going with the least amount of new learning required.

Scope creep is the great enemy of getting things done. If your imagination, your client or other stakeholders are introducing new and wonderful features to distract you, nip that in the bud.  This is why you created your project charter. Keep it beside your Kanban board, where you can see it and remember what you’d first set out to do. If the project drifts from the charter, make sure there’s good reason for it.

Keep moving, do what you can to make some progress every day to stay motivated.  

3. Releasing 1.0 and/or Closing

Maybe you release your 1.0 and this project blow up into a huge success and becomes your life’s work.  Or perhaps you’ve met the goals of your original charter, but you see potential to go further.

On the other hand, maybe you’re completely done with this piece of software;  it’s served its purpose of satisfying a client, or teaching you what you set out to learn, or is now serving you as a handy little tool.

Either way, upon completing the first version of your project, it’s worth doing some work to close it out.  The scale of this effort really depends on the project.

At a minimum, you should archive your post it notes somewhere safe.  When starting your next project, they’ll be useful for remembering what tasks and time commitments were required last time.

Now sit down, have a beer, and contemplate how awesome your shiny software is.

From D.A.K Photography

References and inspiration:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4910022

http://pm.stackexchange.com/questions/195/minimum-project-management-practices-for-one-man-software-projects

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1523418/single-person-application-development

http://kiragiannis.com/business/10-tips-to-guarantee-success-on-solo-projects/

- John Mardlin

The New Marketing: Agile, Lean and Loving

The debate is long over and Agile Development for software is here to stay.

But agile is getting to be much bigger than its beginnings in software. It’s spreading into many new areas of practice, and achieving prime buzzword status.

The advent of the internet and digital culture has had a huge impact on marketing. Perhaps more than any other sector outside of software, marketing has finally embraced Agile in a big way.

I wanted to learn more about how Agile is impacting marketing and digital agencies, so I sat down to talk with Jose Albis, founder of the Albis Consulting Group.

Q: Jose, how is Agile changing marketing?

Well, it’s not just Agile that’s changing marketing. I like to say that “In Today’s Marketing, growth is ALL: Agile, Lean and Loving”.

Being Agile is all about being responsive, creative and fast. Being Lean means working in iterative cycles, testing, measuring what works and what doesn’t and constantly improving based on data. Being Loving means humanizing brands authentically, building community, offering remarkable experiences and seeking meaningful engagement with customers. Noah Kagan calls it, Lovegasms.

These three ideas are changing marketing as we know it!

Q: Wow. Tell me about what Agile means for marketing.

Agile is a new way of doing marketing. It's a combination of traditional marketing, with the influence of the agile software development movement. It's driven by the nature of social media and digital culture, enabling brands to more effectively influence the universe by reacting to the rapidly changing conditions around them.

Being an agile marketer is like being Batman. Before Batman goes into a situation, he has goals and an overall plan, but he knows not everything will go according to his plan. So he has his utility belt with him, and at any time he can use whichever tool he needs from his belt. An agile digital marketer’s utility belt has tactics and strategies covering content marketing, A/B testing, landing pages, SEO, PPC, social media, contests, games, etc.

It's a shift away from planning out entire huge campaigns at the outset, and instead using the Scrum process. Planning a “sprint” of 3 or 4 weeks, it's more of an iterative process. After each sprint, we look back, see what worked, what didn't and then move forward. One of the frameworks that come to mind is the OODA loop.

Q: What's an OODA loop?

It's a concept that comes from the military: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. Each sprint is a new OODA loop, we look back at the last sprint, see what worked, what that means, figure out how to use that, then execute. The speed and efficiency of the OODA loop can represent the competitive advantage of a small startup that is developing the same disrupting technology, against a bigger and slower giant corporation. Think of ‘first to market’.

Q: How closely does agile marketing resemble agile software?

It's very similar in its processes, for example The Scrum Process. I'm an industrial engineer, so it's very natural for me to look at a system and try to optimize it. Agile emerged from the world of software engineering which has special challenges, so it makes sense that engineers would create their own methodologies for managing their projects. Especially when the principles had been around for decades in the Toyota Production System.

Marketing has a lot of similarities to software, it's hard to plan the whole thing from start to finish, and it’s difficult to know how different parts are going to interact, until you build them and release them. Around 2005 or 2006, I personally experienced acceleration in SEO, PPC and Landing Pages which became more important, and marketing became more digital. Marketers were celebrating that direct response didn’t need 9 month cycles but only weeks or days, and at the same time Marketers became more dependent on designers, developers and IT in general.

The traditional paradigm is that marketers and engineers and developers can't communicate, like in the Dilbert cartoons.

But marketers had to learn to work with these IT departments, started to blend into Marketeering and they picked up Agile methods from them.

Q: How are clients reacting to Agile?

Most of my clients are finding it easier than ever before. Instead of me saying "First we're going to do 'this', then we're going to do 'this'... and we're not going to know anything until phase four, and it's going to cost you 10,000 bucks", they get amazing flexibility. Even my agreements are lean and agile, we fail fast to succeed faster. There's not a big commitment like with a big agency. It's very flexible and that way we learn about each other in the process. We work together for a few sprint sessions, and if the relationship is working well, we keep going.

Clients like it because we can get going right away, without having to spend tons of time planning up front and results are faster. A lot of the times we are working in projects that involve technology releases so the Scrum framework makes sense, like dancing to the same tune.

Q: What are some examples of brands doing agile really well?

Oreo is very agile with its use of social media. During the super bowl, the lights were down for maybe half an hour, and they managed to design and send out a very simple, clever, timely tweet within minutes, that was retweeted by thousands of people!

Power out? No problem. twitter.com/Oreo/status/29…

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

Their marketers are in a control room, reacting in real time and sending out materials designed for maximum impact.

Q: So why is it important for marketers to be loving?

What are humans, that brands are not, historically?

[John]: They’re physical beings? They have faces?

They are imperfect. Brands have always tried to look so good, so perfect, that they’re like a robot. That’s why, every time there is a challenge or an opportunity to apologize, it’s also an opportunity to display humanity, to be more loving.
Marketers should should think about how their brand would express itself if it were human. I, Jose, have my own human expressions, ways of speaking and thinking, and reacting to different situations. You have the human expressions that make you John.



So maybe your brand is "nice"... but everyone is “nice”, what is it really? Maybe your brand is assertive, like the Michelin man he’s like a super hero. Having that consistency is important and it's a huge opportunity for old brands to renew themselves.

Conclusion

Agile is changing the face of marketing, but it’s not alone. Being lean and loving brings the full package together and enables a brand to engage with the world in entirely new ways. These three forces are transforming the classic Mad Men advertiser into Marketing Ninjas,Gurus, and even Superheroes.

Thanks to Jose Albis for this fascinating discussion, follow him on twitter at @josealbis.

If you'd like to learn more about Agile, visit the Agile Development Manifesto and the Agile Marketing Manifesto.

- John Mardlin

The First 100 Days in a new Project Management Role

Like the foundation to a building, the first one hundred days are extremely important to success in a new project management position. As a project manager, you're placed in the middle of many people—higher level managers, clients, and other staff; it takes extra effort to get off to a good start so that you can succeed in the long run.

Take it in…but keep shipping

A new company is a new cultural landscape to navigate. You must seek to understand it so that you can thrive within it. Every organization has its own peculiar DNA: a philosophy around decision making and a set of values that prioritize some actions over others. Pay attention to the language of your company’s leaders to identify those values.

It is essential to respect this time to observe and adapt to your new surroundings. At the same time, most of our readers are working in small teams where there's no room for dead weight. You'll be expected to keep your team producing without too many hiccups. This is the balancing act; breathe it all in, but don't stop the forward motion.

Improve the process by shipping

The organization that you've just walked into may be a well-oiled machine or it may be a war zone. Unless you're specifically mandated to begin process improvement immediately, keep your focus on shipping. This can be difficult, given that PMs love process. Among their kind, they can go back and forth endlessly about the best tools to use, the best ways to run meetings, and the best workflow processes.

Steve Sinofsky, former President of the Windows Division at Microsoft has an entire blog, with lengthy essays dedicated to the value of Learning by Shipping.

Never forget though that process exists to aid in the efficient creation of a great product. Keep things moving and observe keenly. Make small tweaks here and there to process and slowly but surely improve the lives of your teammates. With time you'll find yourself in a position to try out a new meeting format or introduce a new project management tool.

Serve your team and the work

Project management is not a glorious position; hopefully this isn't a surprise to you. When things go wrong, you'll take the blame; when you succeed, the accolades necessarily go to your team. Your teammates, the programmers, designers, copywriters, and analytics technicians are the experts. Your true job is to facilitate their collective brilliance toward creating great work.

All too often, managers behave as if a company exists so that they can be managers. Wrong. The purpose of your company is to do the work that it was made to do. You don't have to be subservient or obedient, but you must put yourself in the service of the work, and the people who do it.

Conclusion

The first hundred days in a position are absolutely crucial to your success. You're building your foundation, and there's a balancing act to maintain. Take the time to understand your new surroundings, don't stop your team moving, and most importantly, understand that your purpose is in service to the work that is to be done.

6 way to make your clients love you while staying sane

You work hard to get your clients. All those calls, conferences and coffee meetings aren’t just for fun. So you’d better take care of them once you have them. It may seem burdensome at times, but the effort invested in strong relationships and doing great work will pay back in growth opportunities.

In their book “Leading on the Edge of Chaos”, Emmet C. Murphy and Mark A. Murphy state that a 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10% . Making clients happy is one of the best ways to grow a business. They'll spread the word for you so you can spend less time selling, and more time doing great work.

Build your business on these 6 pillars to keep your clients and grow your business:

1. Make honest and realistic estimations of timelines

We all do it, and it happens in every industry. At the start of a project, you’re feeling good and you know the finished product is going to be great. You’ve made a list of everything involved, and you’ve guesstimated how long each piece will take. This is where things get dangerous. We can be tempted to over-promise when entering into a new relationship, but over-promising does not create sustainable relationships. Set realistic expectations for your timelines, and give yourself some padding for bumps in the road. Because even when you think you’re almost done, you’re probably not.

2. Be a great communicator

Find out your client’s preferred method of communication and use it. If they leave you a message, don’t email, call them back. Make sure your clients know what's going on, before they start to wonder about what you’re up to by providing them with regular updates on a schedule that makes sense for the project. Be especially conscious with formal reports; make your reports concise and understandable, use agreed upon metrics for success, and use visuals when possible.

3. Be Respectful

Your client may not have the same level of expertise that you do (that’s why they’re paying you), but they’re smart enough to know they need you. Take the time to educate them in how you work and what processes you use. Steer clear of jargon; cut down on the three letter acronyms that you throw around casually with your colleagues. Instead, pay attention to how your client speaks, and build that language into your conversations with them.

4. Agree on what success looks like

Doing work that makes your client happy requires great empathy. From the beginning, you need to understand their needs, and get a clear picture of what you're working towards. Once you think you know what you're building, tell your client what you'll be doing. Agree on what needs to be delivered, and how that will be measured. It takes more work upfront, but getting everyone on the same page creates a lot of trust. This trust enables you to do the work, without being constantly pestered. The extra effort at the beginning makes you far more likely to deliver a great product.

5. Set boundaries

You want to keep your clients happy -- that’s why you’re reading this article. You want to reach new heights, diveak down walls and meet stretch goals for them. But remember, they’re looking to you not just to do some work, but also for leadership and guidance. This means letting them know when their ideas won’t work, and not giving in to every demand. If they insist on a change, let them know, in writing, how their request differs from the original scope, and how you expect it will impact the project.

6. Do great work

Obviously! Of course you do great work, you always put your best into every project and sweat the details, right? Great, but not everyone does, and time saved by cutting corners could end up costing you many times over in rework and damaged relationships. By all means, extend yourself, take on big projects and grow, but be sure that you're willing to do what it takes to delight your clients with the finished result.

We can take another great statistic from Murphy and Murphy’s book “Leading on the Edge of Chaos”: organizations that prioritize the customer experience generate 60% higher profits than their competitors. With the rise of social media, people increasingly rely on word of mouth and reviews to make buying decisions. It becomes a virtuous cycle: This means doing great work and making clients happy can be an excellent marketing strategy, which means you can spend less time selling, and more time doing great work.