CMO & CTO Alignment in the Age of Agile | 1

CMO & CTO Alignment in the

“Age of Agile” A Whitepaper by Christina Motley and Dan Berlin

Table of Contents:

CMO & CTO Alignment in the “Age of Agile: …………………………………….…….2

Servant Leadership is a Smart Approach with Moral Imperative...….....3

Welcoming Change as a Competitive………………………………………..4

Fast Feedback Loops and Regular Retrospection……………………......5

The Five Levels of Agile Planning…………………………………………....5

Personas Lead to Customer Insights and Innovation……………...….…6

Slick Rabbit Introduction………………………………………………...…….7

Christina Motley & Associates Introduction……………….……………….8

CMO & CTO Alignment in the Age of Agile | 2

CMO & CTO Alignment

in the Age of Agile A Whitepaper by Christina Motley and Dan Berlin

Undoubtedly, the role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) has

radically changed since its inception centuries ago. Today’s CMO

is evolved with responsibilities and accountability for not only

customers but to all organizational stakeholders and

shareholders. Today’s CMO still manages the traditional aspects

of the job, but also builds intangible assets by creating brand

loyalty, customer equity and long-term business sustainability

through delivering exceptional customer experiences across all

channels of which there are more than ever before.

Likewise the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) role has shifted

focus away from managing multi-year technology strategy

imperatives toward strengthening alignment of business and

technology while fostering innovation. This confluence of

business and technology requires critical data and knowledge

about customer experience and loyalty as it relates to

companies’ technology assets. The Agile CMO provides the

insight and analytics necessary for the Agile CTO to deliver

outstanding innovation and seamless technology faster than

ever before.

With more similarities today than

ever before, companies are

outsourcing more high-tech and

analytical C-suite executives,

especially when it comes to

marketing and technology, which

are intrinsically connected in

today’s digital world.

CMO & CTO Alignment in the Age of Agile | 3

Through the popular book 5 Levels of Leadership John

Maxwell identifies five levels of leadership and how to

master each level.

More c-Suite executives – including CMOs and CTOs

– are embracing this concept, which includes

transparency, authenticity, cross-functional

training and active collaboration.

There is a clear shift that happens in both

marketing and technology environments when

individuals and interactions become the primary

focus (over processes and tools), when

knowledge sharing becomes transparent and

there is a positive leadership attitude.

This philosophy is solid.

It has been tried and proven. And the results

are phenomenal.

People become more efficient.

They focus on results. They have fun with fellow

team members along the way. They become

high performers. Not because you told them.

Because they are involved.

Because they want to.

Servant Leadership is a Smart Approach

with Moral Imperative

“Build projects around

motivated individuals. Give them

the environment and support

they need, and trust them to get

the job done.” 1

The five levels of leadership are:

1. Position. People follow because they have to.

2. Permission. People follow because they want to.

3. Production. People follow because of what you

have done for the organization.

4. People Development. People follow because of

what you have done for them personally.

5. Pinnacle. People follow because of who you are

and what you represent.

Similarly, in his book, Start With Why, Simon Sinek

explains, “It doesn’t matter what you do, it matters

Why you do it.”

Contrast the technique of purpose driven goal setting

with the more traditional command and control

management style and the benefits of servant

leadership become undeniable.

The epitome of true leadership is serving others and

earning their respect.

As a servant leader, it becomes your responsibility to

involve others in mission-critical decision-making and

to enhance their growth through professional

development. A servant leader must exhibit an

uncanny ability to set clear, unambiguous visions to

inspire others to take action without explicit direction.

1 Beck, Kent; et al., "Manifesto for Agile Software Development", Agile Alliance, retrieved from http://agilemanifesto.org

CMO & CTO Alignment in the Age of Agile | 4

Christina Motley & Associates, a CMO marketing

consultancy, adheres to its I.D.E.A.L systematic process that

allows for feedback, planning, retrospection and adaptation

to deliver results based on client goals and objectives.

Here’s a synopsis:

Input: Success starts with the client’s input, their marketing efforts

and any other Subject Matter Experts. Motley and her team look at

what worked, what didn’t work, toughest marketing challenges,

business goals and more. This input framework closely aligns with

fast feedback loops and regular retrospection in an Agile process.

Direction: Marketing is both an art and a science. Before any

marketing strategist can point you in the right direction, they must

dig in deeper. This should include items such as competitive audits,

analysis, (SWOT, PEST, Five Forces, Brand and others), industry

research and best practices. Then the marketing direction and

strategies that are right for you, your goals, your audience and

your business are developed.

Execution: Where the rubber meets the road. If you don’t have a

plan for implementation, you are not ready for strategic marketing. Execution is more than a creative message. It’s about creating the right message, distributing that message to the right audience and driving the desired customer outcomes to achieve your business goals. Assessment: Knowledge is power and learning can make the difference between success and failure. Motley’s company assesses, tests, measures, reports and sometimes adjusts the marketing direction. Likewise, the Agile methodology firmly adheres to measuring progress by end results and tangible products.

Learning: After every project, Motley debriefs the client and the

team so together a successful journey is experienced. Regular

retrospection is a critical component to providing Agile’s fast

feedback loops to develop go-to-market strategies and products

more efficiently and more cost effectively.

Slick Rabbit, LLC, an Agile software consultancy,

provides coaching and training to companies adopting

Agile processes and methodologies. By starting with

key business objectives and aligning the coaching

activities with those objectives, they can ensure that

an Agile adoption delivers real, measurable results.

Slick Rabbit uses customized, targeted assessments to

measure those results and allow for regular strategy

changes and adaptation. More importantly, Slick

Rabbit is the only Agile consultancy offering a solution

to improve Technical Agility.

Improving Technical Agility is a critical, but often-

overlooked aspect of adopting Agile. It refers to the

ability of the core business systems to respond to

change and adhere to an Agile process. Other

consultancies focus solely on improving business

culture and processes, only to fail when the systems

they must maintain cannot adapt to the new

methodology. Slick Rabbit takes a holistic view of an

organization, working to improve not only the

business culture but also the software systems upon

which the business is built. This eliminates any friction

between the way people work and the systems on

which they work, which allows teams to go Agile and

stay Agile.

Welcoming Change as a Competitive

Advantage

Change is constant and there has never been a time like now where change has come so frequently and at

such high speeds.

CMOs must keep up with new tools, new data and analytics and new technologies daily. They must keep abreast of existing

tools and channels that introduce new and frequent changes. It seems every time the wind blows there’s a new app, a change

with a social media channel or new data that provides new insights. The Agile CTO provides critical insight and data about

disruptive new technologies necessary to deliver customer experiences that lead to brand loyalty and outstanding customer

lifetime value. Today’s CMO and CTO must constantly adapt to change and adjust plans accordingly for business success.

CMO & CTO Alignment in the Age of Agile | 5

Fast Feedback Loops and

Regular Retrospection

Agile has become a buzzword, sure, but it is far

more than that and is no longer a theory in the

world of software development. Today Agile is best

practice allowing global enterprises to deliver

innovative products to market faster and with

higher quality than the competition. Agile

encompasses real-time learning

and requires adjusting the course

of action according to real-time

data and feedback.

Developed in 2001, the Agile

Manifesto formally summarizes

the idea of collaboration across cross-functional

teams with incremental improvements built into

the development process. Marketers who are not

following this same philosophy will be left behind.

While marketing is both an art and a science, trial

and error, time and Return on Investment should

not be overlooked. Embracing Agile, the goal is to

fail fast and learn how to do it better next time.

Hence the concept of A/B testing has come to the

forefront of marketing.

Similarly, CMOs can no longer afford to wait until

the end of the year to review, analyze and adapt

their strategies. Marketing dashboards deliver real-

time data allowing greater flexibility than ever

before. Great marketing efforts work to achieve

overarching business goals. When they fail to

achieve those goals, marketers must dive deep into

the data. The goal is to turn data into information;

information into insights; insights into actionable

strategies; and strategies into profitable results.

The Five Levels of

Agile Planning

Having a clear direction and plan of attack will lead

to exceptional results when executing against any

product development or marketing strategy. It all

starts with a clear Vision of the future state. CMOs

and CTOs take responsibility for envisioning the

future market and technology positioning of the

company, respectively. Putting those visions into

action requires a Roadmap, the

second level of planning. In

collaboration with their teams,

C-suite produces a high level outline

of which key objectives require

immediate focus and which will

follow fast.

The next three levels of planning prepare

marketing and development teams to execute on

the Vision and Roadmap. They form their ideas into

a Release, or increment of execution that is a few

months in duration and concludes with one or

more completed key business objectives. Agile

teams will typically break those releases into

smaller time boxes of two to four weeks, called

Iterations (or Sprints). Finally, the execution teams

meet Daily to review progress to stay focused on

the desired business outcomes.

This Agile, multi-level planning and execution

strategy ensures alignment to key business

objectives and strategies at all levels of an

organization, regardless of size. It further provides

key checkpoints often (such as at the end of an

Iteration) for business stakeholders at all levels to

assess market performance data and adjust

execution plans as necessary, without disrupting

the flow of their teams’ work.

CMO & CTO Alignment in the Age of Agile | 6

Though creating and promoting products and services may seem like a basic daily task, it may surprise you

how many people cannot describe their ideal customer or different users. “If you don’t know who you are

creating a product for, or to whom you are marketing (or selling) a product, you are at a distinct

disadvantage.” Persona is a widely used and critical term in both technology and marketing industries.

Persona should be part of both the CMO’s

and CTO’s regular vocabulary when

communicating with their teams.

Personas are hypothetical archetypes of

actual customers or users and can be

developed by companies to help solve the

aforementioned problem for all parties

involved in the customer life cycle. In other

words, personas are a crucial component of

successful marketing and sales departments.

After all, marketers must know to whom they are marketing, and sales teams need to know to whom they

are selling.

By definition, personas are fictional characters created to represent the different user types within a

targeted demographic, attitude and/or behavior set that might use a website, brand, product or service in a

similar way. For more information about personas, visit Motley’s whitepaper, “Personas Breakthrough

Customer Insights.”1

Agile product development teams take the concept of user persona into the realm of work definition and

product development. Work is no longer framed as discrete tasks to be performed, but rather as descriptive

stories of future customer benefits, referred to as User Stories. This technique focuses the team on a

product’s market positioning and end users as much as the technology on which a product is built.

Innovation is therefore aligned more closely with tangible user benefits, which allows companies to

produce products that customers truly value.

Personas Lead to Customer Insights

and Innovation

1 http://cdn.christinamotley.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Personas-Breakthrough-Customer-Insights.pdf

CMO & CTO Alignment in the Age of Agile | 7

About Slick Rabbit

Based in Morrisville, NC, Slick Rabbit, LLC is an Agile consulting company with a focus on Technical Agility,

which aligns software development with business operations. Services include Agile training, leadership

coaching, team coaching and organizational transformation. Slick Rabbit helps Fortune 500 and other large

businesses successfully adopt Agile methodologies by aligning the adoption efforts with business objectives

and taking a holistic view of the organization. For more information, contact Slick Rabbit, LLC

at 919-238-1513, or visit www.slickrabbit.com.

About the Author

Dan Berlin is a Principal Consultant for Slick Rabbit, LLC focused on Agile coaching and training. Dan has

more than 10 years hands-on software delivery experience with major clients in a variety of industries,

including finance, entertainment, software, manufacturing and media. Dan has a deep understanding of all

aspects of Agile software delivery, from project management to agile testing, and is passionate about

sharing his experiences with others. Dan sometimes speaks at software related conferences, and currently

resides in Morrisville, North Carolina.

CMO & CTO Alignment in the Age of Agile | 8

About Christina Motley & Associates

Based in Raleigh, NC, Christina Motley & Associates delivers on point marketing strategies and marketing

coaching for business growth. Christina Motley and her team of professionals deliver a suite of marketing

services from CMO For Hire to integrated marketing strategies and solutions for a variety of industries.

Working with Fortune 500 enterprise to small and medium-sized businesses, Christina Motley & Associates

identifies and delivers marketing strategies for maximum impact while staying within budget. We partner

with our clients to develop tighter integration between marketing and critical business functions. Our

strengths help companies realize increased shareholder accountability, customer loyalty and sustained

profitability while maintaining lean operations and building human capital. For more information, contact

Christina Motley at 919-208-0963, or visit www.christinamotley.com.

About the Author

CEO of Christina Motley & Associates, Christina Motley is a veteran, integrated Chief Marketing Officer

(CMO)-on-Demand with 300+ creative, marketing, business, leadership and civic awards. She is a published

author, dynamic speaker and member of the National Speakers Association, corporate trainer, serial

entrepreneur, and according to her Columbia University daughter, “World’s Best Mom.”

Her successful implementation of integrated marketing strategies has resulted in her servicing multiple

clients in a variety of industries since 1992. As a popular keynote speaker, she successfully engages

audiences on all things marketing and leadership. Her books Leadership Philosophies from Unsung Leaders

and Roanoke Fire and Rescue: Reflections of 150 Year History are available at www.ChristinaMotley.com. A

native to Charleston, SC, Christina spent many years in Northern Virginia and Southwest Virginia prior to

moving to Raleigh, NC.