In the past, our company has seen success through referrals and a small amount of marketing. When we decided to take it up a notch to be more intentional in our growth, we reached out to Barb Bertsch, a marketing wiz, to evaluate our efforts.
What we learned was enlightening. Although we felt like we were “doing marketing,” we didn’t have a marketing strategy, we weren’t measuring our results, and we weren’t evaluating the results of our activities. Barb explained that this was a common phenomenon known as Random Acts of Marketing.
Are You Performing Random Acts of Agile?
I started thinking about the organizations I’ve worked with who essentially do the same thing with Agile. They say they’re “going Agile” and they want to become a company that incorporates Agile into their structure. They’ve read some great articles about Agile and what it looks like.
As a result, they take their project managers and make them Scrum masters. They tell their teams to conduct “daily stand-ups” and have “sprints.” These teams may even have a few meetings to explain what all of this means.
Yet, in spite of all these efforts, they just don’t see any benefits, leaving a lot of confusion and incomplete projects. The problem is this: they’re performing Random Acts of Agile.
It’s About Being Agile, Not Doing Agile
Organizations must understand that it isn’t about doing Agile—it’s about being Agile. The key is to become Agile through a whole-system approach, addressing the mechanics by which their work is performed, the culture in which those mechanics operate, and the commonality among it all.
Your organization will continually reject the changes made if one ecosystem changes without the other. In fact, this is where most Agile efforts fail. Only performing random tasks associated with becoming Agile won’t result in an Agile team, much like random marketing tasks won’t result in meaningful growth.
Stop Performing Random Acts of Agile and Move Forward
Just like our random marketing tasks, you can’t be half-in when attempting to become an Agile organization. It’s time to stop performing Random Acts of Agile and start moving forward. To learn more about Agile development, view Mike's blog.