It sounds extreme, but it’s important to break ties with the old and make way for the new when starting your agile adoption. Traditional marketing practices (hierarchy, working in silos, set in stone plans, perfectionism) have no place in agile. If you have team members that won’t get on board, they should be off the team. The energy used trying to get them on board is often wasted, and they most likely won’t be happy on agile teams anyway. “Rehire” team members who work well in a collaborative environment and are willing to give this agile thing a try.

Get Rid of Titles
The only place titles belong in agile are on business cards, not among team members. Agile methods give everyone on the team the opportunity to step up, and provide visibility into which members are contributing and which ones aren’t. Practicing agile also exposes the difference between people who rely on their titles to manage and those with real leadership skills. At the end of the day, stories are committed to and worked on by the entire team, regardless of pay scale.

Blur the Lines Between Functions or Break Them Down Completely
Functional areas or specializations are a little trickier. Not everybody on the team has the same skills and experience, but you’ll be surprised how many hidden talents you’ll find. Designers can have great campaign ideas and SEO experts can provide insight into social media programs. Team members that have experience in entrepreneurial environments or in agencies are used to wearing many hats and can contribute to stories outside of what they were hired to do. Create opportunities for the marketing equivalent to Pair Programming (i.e. cross training) and you’ll begin to create a true cross-functional agile team.

Sounds Good, Right?
But it’s not easy and it takes time. Breaking down the lines between functional areas was the hardest for me personally. Not because I didn’t want to work on stories outside of my area of expertise (I love doing that), but because I had a hard time letting other team members work on “my” stuff. Traditional concepts of ownership (mine, yours, ours) are hard to break, especially on marketing teams, but giving up the me in team is crucial to successful agile adoption.

We spun our wheels in a few areas we could have avoided when we were transitioning, but hindsight is 20/20. What have you learned in your agile transition that could help other marketers?