Agile Training for Marketing

When teams get trained on new ways of working, project performance hits an impressive 76.6%, according to PMI. Maximize your training investment with courses tailored for modern marketing.

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Agile delivers value faster, with less risk & happier people

Business outcomes

Align with organizational goals so marketing can prove its strategic importance (and protect its budget).

Customer centricity

Keep campaigns focused on your customers and their needs, instead of internal jargon.

Data-driven decisions

Get disciplined about collecting, analyzing, and acting on data through agile practices.

Faster speed to market

Break the cycle of giant campaigns that take months to release with iterative agile approaches.

Understanding the Value of
Modern Agile Training

Effective Agile training can transform not just the results marketing can achieve but how it functions on a basic level. But not all training is created equal, so it’s important to understand the options out there and what you can achieve with them.

Understanding Agile training begins with appreciating a single fact: Agile is all about mindset. Even if you take a team and have them follow all the Agile rituals like visualization boards and daily standups, you’re not going to unlock the full benefits without that mindset.

But why isn’t following Agile practices enough? Simply put, Agile isn’t one single set of practices. There are a nearly infinite number of ways to approach being an Agile marketing team or organization. What ties them together is that they follow the Principles of Agile Marketing.

Every team can and should work to adapt Agile to fit their needs. Agile training and an Agile mindset help ensure that those adaptations don’t accidentally undermine the value you’re trying to get out of Agile. As a result, your team can be highly adaptable, finding the best way to implement Agile to match your unique situation without sacrificing the value it brings.

When you jump right into implementation without that foundation of Agle training and mindset, you end up getting stuck on common challenges.

For example, let’s say your team feels overwhelmed and unable to handle their workload. However, they don’t feel that prioritization is worth the effort, don’t feel like they can tell their stakeholders “no,” and are hesitant to take on less work during their sprints. Without an understanding of Agile principles, they can easily fail to appreciate why these steps are so important and worth the pushback they may receive.

You end up with a team that’s “doing” Agile things like working in sprints but the lack of an Agile mindset is preventing them from taking key steps that can fix their problem. As a result, frustration can build as the team fails to unlock the benefits it expects and Agile can turn into a costly failure.

So when approaching Agile training, be sure not to focus too much on learning a single approach like Scrum or Kanban or on practices like sprints alone. Instead, focus on understanding the principles that create that all important Agile mindset. With that foundation, you have maximum flexibility in finding what approach to Agile works best.

How Agile Mindset & Learning Combine

Understanding Agile training begins with appreciating a single fact: Agile is all about mindset. Even if you take a team and have them follow all the Agile rituals like visualization boards and daily standups, you’re not going to unlock the full benefits without that mindset.

But why isn’t following Agile practices enough? Simply put, Agile isn’t one single set of practices. There are a nearly infinite number of ways to approach being an Agile marketing team or organization. What ties them together is that they follow the Principles of Agile Marketing.

Every team can and should work to adapt Agile to fit their needs. Agile training and an Agile mindset help ensure that those adaptations don’t accidentally undermine the value you’re trying to get out of Agile. As a result, your team can be highly adaptable, finding the best way to implement Agile to match your unique situation without sacrificing the value it brings.

When you jump right into implementation without that foundation of Agle training and mindset, you end up getting stuck on common challenges.

For example, let’s say your team feels overwhelmed and unable to handle their workload. However, they don’t feel that prioritization is worth the effort, don’t feel like they can tell their stakeholders “no,” and are hesitant to take on less work during their sprints. Without an understanding of Agile principles, they can easily fail to appreciate why these steps are so important and worth the pushback they may receive.

You end up with a team that’s “doing” Agile things like working in sprints but the lack of an Agile mindset is preventing them from taking key steps that can fix their problem. As a result, frustration can build as the team fails to unlock the benefits it expects and Agile can turn into a costly failure.

So when approaching Agile training, be sure not to focus too much on learning a single approach like Scrum or Kanban or on practices like sprints alone. Instead, focus on understanding the principles that create that all important Agile mindset. With that foundation, you have maximum flexibility in finding what approach to Agile works best.

How Agile Mindset & Learning Combine

The best way to answer this question is by appreciating that the main goal of Agile training is to develop an Agile mindset by understanding and applying the fundamentals. The way you get there can vary depending on your resources and who you’re hoping to train.

First, you can have asynchronous Agile training. This usually involves online courses that can be completed without an instructor. This can be useful when you need to minimize costs or have learners with busy schedules that make it difficult to fit in-person training in. While these courses are very useful, they work best as a foundation for further training.

The reason comes back to the fact that Agile is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Really understanding how Agile principles apply to your circumstances requires some back and forth with an experienced Agile coach. This back and forth is also far more effective at ensuring those Agile principles transform into a genuine mindset shift.

The second common type of Agile training is online instructor-led courses. Here, you work with a certified instructor through topics like Agile marketing fundamentals or Agile marketing leadership. These courses may or may not give you a certification upon completion. But the bigger difference is that by working with an experienced instructor you have more opportunities to ask questions, learn from fellow learners, and ensure the concepts are more deeply understood by the end.

The final common type of Agile training is in-person and instructor-led. Here, an Agile coach comes to your business and works directly with your team members on both learning core Agile principles and how to apply them to your specific challenges. This can be more helpful later in your Agile journey after you’ve had some Agile education and training because it’s better suited to working through the toughest challenges that can come with Agile adoption or transformation.

Learn More About Agile Education

Ultimately, Agile training is about one thing: unlocking the full benefits of marketing agility. So to understand the value that training can provide, you need to understand what those benefits look like in practice.

One vital benefit for modern marketers is happier customers. Agile’s focus on framing work around delivering stakeholder value (and having the customer as one of those stakeholders) helps ensure they don’t get forgotten. This focus goes beyond rhetoric because it’s baked into the fundamentals of how Agile functions. As a result, customers feel better known and understood, helping improve retention and engagement.

Then there’s the ability of Agile teams to effectively adapt to change. We all understand that the pace of change in marketing isn’t slowing down. Ignoring this change is a recipe for failure, so teams that are able to take advantage of the opportunities that change provides are far more likely to succeed. Agile has this process built-in as well, with continuous improvement and iterative changes at the core of how it solves marketing challenges.

A result of that embrace of change is that your marketing teams are able to learn vital lessons far faster. Instead of learning and adapting only when forced by circumstances, your teams are testing ideas and building upon past learnings. The result is cumulative, with each new insight building on those that came before to enable your teams to outperform the competition.

Unsurprisingly, this embrace of experimentation and continuous learning also means teams innovate far more. More ideas are raised, and those ideas can be rigorously tested to scientifically determine which ones are worth pursuing.

One area where that kind of experimentation can really move the needle is in operations. By routinely looking at the processes that drive everything you do, it’s possible to dramatically reduce waste and empower individuals more. Instead of just letting processes drag you down, delays and problems are addressed quickly and worked on until improvements can be found.

Together, we’ve seen marketing departments harness these advantages to save millions of dollars per year through Agile transformations driven by effective Agile training.

See 10 Reasons to Invest in Agile Training

Getting the Most Out of Agile Training

If you’re ready to invest in Agile training, you need to ensure you get the maximum value from that investment.

Something we’ve witnessed time and time again through the years is the exceptional ROI Agile training provides. This comes from a few key pieces of data. The first is the basic fact that most Agile transformations fail, as do many Agile adoptions. These failures are tremendously costly both in terms of wasted resources and frustration from team members.

Agile training helps avoid those costly failures, minimizing disruptions, and ultimately getting you access to Agile’s benefits faster and more reliably. When looking at the ROI you can expect, there are a few things to consider. First is what the cost of failed Agile implementation would be. How might that affect employee morale and turnover? What about their productivity? How would senior leaders view that failure?

While there’s no way to precisely calculate how likely Agile training is to prevent such a failure, it’s worth asking the question. Reducing turnover, improving employee satisfaction, and getting that Agile value faster are all important benefits to consider. That Agile value means faster iterations and better performance. For example, increasing the number of MQLs you bring in monthly or eliminating waste by regularly improving your processes.

Then there’s the actual experience people have with Agile training. Our annual survey of thousands of marketers around the globe shows just how much value they get from it. 78% find “train the trainer” programs valuable. Another 74% report that working with Agile coaches helped. 70% felt that Agile certification courses were useful in their journeys.

Those numbers get lower as you move away from Agile training with experienced coaches. 66% found books and articles useful while 53% said the same about self-paced learning. To be fair, these are the most affordable forms of Agile training so it makes sense they don’t provide quite as much value.

Taken together, Agile training has the clear potential to provide outstanding ROI. We’ve seen as much in our own clients. The trick is finding the right balance of training, coaching, and other education to get the most bang for your buck.

Learn More

While it’s clear that Agile training can provide excellent ROI, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some potentially costly mistakes you’ll want to avoid making. 

The first is skipping the fundamentals. Agile is built on principles and values that serve as a foundation for every single framework, whether you’re looking at Scrum, Kanban, or a hybrid approach. Focusing too much on the practice of Agile without understanding why those practices work is how you end up with Agile teams struggling to understand why they’re not getting the benefits they’d hoped for.

Another common mistake is forgetting that Agile is not a rigidly prescriptive one-size-fits-all proposition. What works great for one team can be disastrous for another. A crucial part of the process of Agile adoption or transformation is finding the best way to apply Agile to your situation through trial and error. Ideally, you’ll also have some experienced Agile practitioners to help you in the process.

Taken together, both of these mistakes are about going too fast. By skipping the fundamentals or trying to adopt someone else’s successful version of Agile wholesale you may think you’re saving time. But in reality, you’re skipping steps that are vital for success. The result is likely to be a far costlier process in the long-run.

When it comes to actually choosing the right Agile training, there are a few other mistakes to be aware of. Firstly, be careful and deliberate in how you make your selection. There are a lot of options available so taking the time to choose carefully is likely to pay off. Look at price, flexibility, ratings, and whether the coaches or training materials are suited to your particular industry. For example, if you work in a highly regulated industry like banking, you may want to find coaches with experience applying Agile in situations like yours.

Finally, it’s crucial to ensure your Agile training balances theory and practice. Both are essential for success. The theory (IE those foundational Agile principles and values) is vital. But the practice (IE how you apply that theory) is just as important. Agile success is about combining both in order to ensure your way of being Agile can successfully adapt and evolve as needed.

See the Common Agile Training Mistakes

As much as Agile training provides excellent ROI, the equation for that isn’t a simple “more is better” situation. Actually maximizing the impact of any Agile training requires balancing the types of training and education your team members receive.

Fortunately, finding the right balance is relatively straightforward. The 70-20-10 principle lays out an effective ratio between three main types of Agile training. This approach allocates 10% of time for structured learning like workshops, eLearning, webinars, etc. Many people assume this type of learning should make up 100% of Agile learning when in reality it’s just the start.

Structured learning is where you get the fundamentals right, studying the principles and values of Agile so you can later apply them. Speaking of applying that learning, this is where the next 20% of your time should be spent: learning from others. This translates into coaching, mentoring, and learning about practical experiences others like you have had.

This 20% is the first step towards applying those Agile fundamentals to your own challenges. It’s where you begin to see how that can be done, spot challenges others have overcome, and generally get a more practical on-the-ground understanding of Agile in practice.

Finally, you have the remaining 70%. This portion is all about actually learning from experience: solving problems, working on projects, and generally applying all that you’ve learned. Importantly, this means that 90% of your Agile training time comes after that initial formal training. 

In other words, if you’re planning on providing some formal training and just stopping at that point, you’re missing 90% of what you’ll need for success. We’ve seen teams wonder why they’re not achieving what others are after training and the key difference is that remaining work on applying the knowledge in a practical way.

To avoid this common pitfall, it’s crucial to plan for those subsequent stages to ensure your team members are able to successfully apply everything they’ve learned to unlock their full Agile potential.

Improve Training with the 70-20-10 Principle

While the knowledge and experience you can get from Agile training is excellent, the option to get a certification as well can be tempting. So how can you determine whether it’s worth investing in certification?

The first thing to consider is the type of role you expect to have within an Agile team alongside the possible Agile framework you may use. For example, if you’re absolutely certain you’ll be using Scrum or Kanban, you may want to look at certifications focused on those frameworks. However, if you’re unclear about what framework you may end up using, you’ll want to hold off and stick to the fundamentals.

Likewise, if you know you’re going to be in a leadership role, it may be worth considering an Agile Leadership certification. Otherwise, a more basic certification would make more sense.

The point is that you should only invest in an Agile certification if you’re clear on what your needs are. Agile isn’t rigidly prescriptive, so often the early days are all about figuring out how best to apply its principles and values to the way your team functions. So while a course on Agile marketing fundamentals will make sense for just about anyone, anything more advanced should be combined with practical experience so you’re certain you’re studying the right thing and have the chance to apply it.

A final thing to consider is how important it may be to prove your Agile credentials to people outside your organization. Certifications are a fast and efficient way to communicate your knowledge if you expect to be changing roles in the future. If you want to ease that process down the line, a certification may be worth the investment.

Browse Agile Marketing Certifications

Further Reading

A major consideration when looking into Agile training has to be the kinds of marketing skills you want to bolster. While Agility itself helps improve the way you operate as a marketer, you can also approach Agile training to focus on specific skill areas.

For example, one underrated but vital function within marketing is operations. Agile marketing can help marketing operations professionals hone their ability to identify and address problems in the processes that drive marketing success. Even non specialists can benefit from an understanding of how better marketing operations can improve the performance of a team overall.

With mindset so crucial to Agile success, one component of the Agile mindset is worth highlighting is continuous improvement. This is a culture built around constantly looking for ways to improve strategies and processes alike then testing those improvements. In other words, it’s a marketing skill that can help improve every aspect of how your team functions over time.

A key skill that underlies that continuous improvement in Agile is data analysis. Understanding how to collect the right metrics, analyze them, and use them to demonstrate whether tests and ideas are working is vital. This skill is widely applicable and an excellent one to invest in alongside more general Agile training.

Another skill that doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves within marketing is prioritization. Even the most effective marketer isn’t going to have much of an impact if they’re unable to prioritize the right work at the right time. Agile teams practice prioritization regularly as they build and maintain backlogs or just decide what work to focus on during a sprint.

Finally, it’s worth highlighting how Agile training can foster better collaboration. Agile teams are usually cross-functional, meaning they contain everyone needed to accomplish their work internally. This means they get a lot of practice honing their processes, measuring their efficiency, and generally becoming a well-oiled machine. As a result, their members get a lot of practice collaborating effectively and gaining valuable experience working on such a team.

Still, there’s a wide range of other marketing skills out there, so you can check out a longer list to see other things you may want to focus on during Agile training.

See the Must-Have Marketing Skills

A major consideration when looking into Agile training has to be the kinds of marketing skills you want to bolster. While Agility itself helps improve the way you operate as a marketer, you can also approach Agile training to focus on specific skill areas.

For example, one underrated but vital function within marketing is operations. Agile marketing can help marketing operations professionals hone their ability to identify and address problems in the processes that drive marketing success. Even non specialists can benefit from an understanding of how better marketing operations can improve the performance of a team overall.

With mindset so crucial to Agile success, one component of the Agile mindset is worth highlighting is continuous improvement. This is a culture built around constantly looking for ways to improve strategies and processes alike then testing those improvements. In other words, it’s a marketing skill that can help improve every aspect of how your team functions over time.

A key skill that underlies that continuous improvement in Agile is data analysis. Understanding how to collect the right metrics, analyze them, and use them to demonstrate whether tests and ideas are working is vital. This skill is widely applicable and an excellent one to invest in alongside more general Agile training.

Another skill that doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves within marketing is prioritization. Even the most effective marketer isn’t going to have much of an impact if they’re unable to prioritize the right work at the right time. Agile teams practice prioritization regularly as they build and maintain backlogs or just decide what work to focus on during a sprint.

Finally, it’s worth highlighting how Agile training can foster better collaboration. Agile teams are usually cross-functional, meaning they contain everyone needed to accomplish their work internally. This means they get a lot of practice honing their processes, measuring their efficiency, and generally becoming a well-oiled machine. As a result, their members get a lot of practice collaborating effectively and gaining valuable experience working on such a team.

Still, there’s a wide range of other marketing skills out there, so you can check out a longer list to see other things you may want to focus on during Agile training.

See the Must-Have Marketing Skills

If you’re looking at Agile training within the context of a larger Agile transformation, you may be wondering about the difference between an Agile CoE and simple training. An Agile CoE is an internal group of experienced and enthusiastic Agile practitioners designed to support a wider transformation. It generally advocates for Agile ways of working while supporting the shift towards them throughout the organization.

Agile CoEs are exceptionally valuable in doing things like helping non-technical teams understand how to apply Agile knowledge to practical challenges. Because they exist within the organization itself and contain a lot of Agile experience, they’re uniquely suited to walk teams through the practical side of Agile.

Put another way, if 10% of your Agile training should be structured learning, Agile CoEs can help with the remaining 20% of informal training, mentoring, feedback, etc. They can also assist in the final 70% of Agile training: the on-the-job experience that helps individuals actually apply all they’ve learned.

So while Agile CoEs can sometimes provide structured Agile training, it’s important not to overstretch them. They’re better suited to aiding in the remaining 90% of practical application of what individuals learn in structured courses. So if you’re wondering whether you need Agile training when you already have an Agile CoE the answer is probably yes.

Use structured training to equip team members with the fundamentals. Then your Agile CoE can work with them to apply that knowledge. If it’s clear that further structured training is needed, the Agile CoE can help identify what kind of training will have the most impact. This enables the CoE to focus on areas where it can have the greatest impact within a broader Agile transformation.

Learn What Agile CoEs Can & Can’t Do

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