transforming an advertising agency · two stories rousing success applying agile outside of it ......

David Grabel

Transforming an Advertising Agency

Common WisdomAgile Can’t Work Outside of IT

Agile is great for software development, not for creative work

“They” won’t let us experiment

Our (internal) clients expect to see polished, professional work

Two Stories

Rousing success applying Agile outside of IT

The beginning of the enterprise agile transformation that this success unlocked.

David GrabelEnterprise Lean & Agile Coach

Lean and Agile Coaching

Contributed to Books:

The Agency at Vistaprint

Creative requestreceived

Assign to PM

Review request, attach

task list

Kick-off

Designer and

Copywriter work

10,5 hrs 2 hrs

21 days

Creative requestreceived

Assign to PM

Review request,

attach task list

Kick-off

Designer and

Copywriter work

2 hrs

Internal review

Internal edits

Client presentation

meeting

Internal approval

Internal approval

Receive feedback and make changes

Files hand over to

P&D

QA to check files showing up

Link form PTP to

eBlocksQA checks

Handover to

MarketingBuild emails

Emails sent

= Actual processing time

= Lead time

7,25 hrs10,5 hrs

21 days 5 days

9,03 hrs

18 days

?

10 days?

7,25 hrs

6 days

BLAME

And then…

BLAME

The Team’s Story

26

North American Email pilot

rush

ed

Team: What was our process like before?

27

frustrating

disorganized

difficultno

tru

st

stressed

overwhelming

unclear

fear

ful

scared

awkward

inefficient

bla

me

poor communicationAimless

reac

tive

wafflingdefensive

silo

ed

28

The issues we faced

Feedback “swirls”

Unclear decision rights

Long creative lead times

29

Dedicated team

Upfront alignment and visibility

More informal touch points

Team outings

Agile coaching and training

30

"Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.”

--Norm Kerth, Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews

31

32

Lean practices

33

Lean practices

Daily stand-up at Kanban board

Creative Request submission using an ‘Idea Pipeline’

Retrospectives

34

35

Decision Effectiveness

Hypothesis

Results

36

15Days 7 Days

January May October

40Days

37

Lead Time: Time it takes to move a project from “on deck” to “complete”

-83% overall

15Days

8Days

4Days

January May October

38

Cycle Time: When the creative team starts work on a project to when it’s “complete”

-73% overall

43%early

36%on time

21%late

39

Delivery Metrics

40

Face-to-face communication

Delivering value sooner

Self organized team

Transparency of data and goals

Welcome changing requirementsReflection

Frequent collaboration

Success factors for team

How does the team feel since going Agile?

41

partnershiphappy

effective

ded

icat

edap

pro

ach

able

RAPID motivatedfun

tru

st

pro

du

ctiv

e

face-to-face global

visi

bili

ty

collaborative

efficient

sust

ain

ableflexible

tran

spar

ent

How did we do it?

People and Process

COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL 44

Overwhelming success opened the door for…

Agile across the globe

Enterprise Agilestarting with the executive team

The Enterprise Business Agility Transformation

Customer Seat at the Table

Agile Framework

and MindsetStable Teams

Lean Portfolio Mgmt.

Customer Personas &

Journey Maps

Experiments,MVP, MMP

Problem/Solution Discovery

Validation & Optimization

Portfolio Breakdown &

Sizing

Demand/Capacity Mgmt.

Strategic Alignment

Finance & Governance

Team Design & Rollout

Stability & Allocation

Manager Transition

CoP & Enabling Teams

Agile Methods

Facilitation & Collaboration

Agile Planning

Agile/Lean Mindset

Leadership & Culture

Transformation

Servant Leadership

Tactical to Strategic

Leadership

Leading Agile Teams

Adaptive Leadership

Make it Stick

Build Internal Capacity

Scale Learning

Measure & Grow

Change Mgmt.

Technology Transformation

Copyright© Agile Transformation Inc.PILLARS OF ENTERPRISE AGILITY FRAMEWORK

Vision & Architecture

Technical Excellence & Innovation

Software & ToolsDevOps &

Continuous Delivery

Slide courtesy of Agile Transformations Inc.

Deliver overwhelming success beyond IT

Provide executive support

Bottoms up & top downOpt-in not mandated

Visit Agile companieslearn from extremes

Encourage experimentationgive permission to fail

Agile Education

Focus on the Agile mindset and Lean Startup thinking

Kanban Method Enterprise WIP limits

David Grabel

dgrabel@vistaprint.com

www.linkedin.com/in/davidgrabel

Twitter: @dgrabel