Agile Marketing: Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban

John Follett

Kanban Board

Are you struggling to get more done with fewer resources?  Maybe it’s time to consider an agile approach to marketing.

Agile Marketers take a modern approach to manage their work because it increases productivity, transparency, and communication across the marketing team.

There are three distinct agile marketing methods, each with their own set of principles, that will help you and your marketing team complete tasks more efficiently.

In this blog post, you will learn:

  • How Agile Marketers plan their work
  • Which agile marketing approach is right for you
  • The agile marketing approaches in Demand Metric

Scrum, Kanban, and Scrumban are three distinct approaches that you should be familiar with when tackling work. The overview below describes each of these approaches at a high-level.

For more information, visit our post, “What is Agile Marketing.”

Overview

Scrum is used to manage the work within a defined timescale called a Sprint. These generally last between 1 and four weeks in which time you would be working through your task. This is a formal method that ensures deadlines are respected.

Kanban method is a way to visually manage a “To-Do list” and isn’t as formal as Scrum. A Kanban Board is flexible, and workflow isn’t constrained as there aren’t “deadlines,” rather the work and tasks are progressing towards a larger goal. This is the most basic method for completing projects.

Scrumban is a blend of Scrum and Kanban. This hybrid approach is designed for more mature agile teams which work in unpredictable environments where planning requires constant shifts. It provides the flexibility of Kanban and the formality of Sprints. Teams work in a continuous flow within a longer planning cycle that is tied to launch or release dates.

How Agile Marketers Plan their Work

Prioritizing the work for each Sprint is a good place to start. This stage involves negotiations to make sure the right tasks are being tackled. Use our “Backlog Prioritization Tool” to rank projects based on their strategic fit, economic impact, and feasibility.

 

If your task is too big, and cannot be done within a Sprint timeframe, you should be splitting up the project into smaller parts as Sprint dates need to be adhered to.

Using a simple Kanban approach takes some of the pressure off and provides an additional layer of flexibility. Here you would add work to the task list, but there will be no fixed points because there are no Sprints.

In Scrumban, you and your team will do the planning when you run out of work, or in agile-speak “when the backlog is complete.”

Which Agile Marketing approach is best for you?

Scrum’s advantage is that it helps manage big/complex projects that need to stay on top of strict requirements and need to be delivered under tight deadlines.

If there is a steady stream of work and informal requirements, the Kanban method is what you should go with.

Scrumban provides timeboxing work into Sprints and having the ability to add new work. We have adopted this approach at Demand Metric since our team is highly specialized with clearly defined roles, the approach allows for iterations, and because we use a Kanban board that includes a backlog.

Agile Marketing: Scrum, Kanban and, Scrumbam in Demand Metric

Demand Metric allows you and your team to work with any of the Agile Marketing approaches to improve the progress of your projects.

As a collaboration and communication tool, Demand Metric will help you check project status at any time from anywhere.

All your projects will be stored in one central, convenient location, and you will get automatic alerts when tasks are complete, or when your team is falling behind.

 

 

Analyst Bottom Line

The purpose of these three methodologies is to keep work optimized to achieve better results and higher productivity for your team. These concepts will help control your projects so they are right on schedule and reach completion.

Are you ready to learn more?

Check out our “What is Agile Marketing” post or click here to book a demo.