They chose a holistic, rather than a piecemeal, approach to their Agile transformation, taking action on a number of different, aligned fronts for the best chance of implementing agility sustainably. Their methodical approach included leadership team and individual coaching, extensive training for their teams, introducing communities of practice among team leads, and executing directly from a strategic transformation backlog customized for their purposes.

The first part of their journey, which included team, leader and stakeholder assessments and interviews to produce detailed recommendations and a new operational construct, was geared towards establishing the right pillars for success through AgileSherpas’ Ascension offering. The work was the result of a leadership team that was ready to put in the effort to drive success.

Unlike other leadership teams that might sit on the sidelines of an Agile transformation, the marketing leadership team was ready to put in just as much work as their teams.

All leadership team members received one-on-one coaching sessions from AgileSherpas to work individually on developing their Agile leadership capabilities. As a group, they completed four intense leadership workshops and were also coached as an Agile team themselves. This proved to be an invaluable motivator for leaders as well as team members. The goal of these sessions was to gain a deeper understanding of Agile principles, evaluate leaders’ own readiness to lead Agile teams and drive increased Agile buy-in among their team members.

“Being able to meet people where they are requires us to understand where we are first and where they might be, so that we can connect those dots. Learning to do that through leadership coaching has been tremendously valuable. When we look at things like fostering a collaborative culture, that has been incredibly important,” believes the CMO.

The Director of System Communications was part of these coaching sessions and recalls the call for greater self-awareness that they catalyzed in him and his peers:

The marketing leadership team experienced exponential growth during this period. In order to foster an environment for agility, they learned to have more transparent conversations amongst themselves and work through crucial topics more effectively as a unit.

Understanding Stakeholders

Despite being in a highly regulated industry, the organization’s stakeholders are a critical partner, encouraging their continuous improvement in Agile ways of work.

“The Agile effort has been able to give some perspective not only to our team, but also our stakeholders on the incremental improvements we are trying to make so that we can move fast and we can drive speed to value for the organization on the things that matter most. They see the science and there seems to be an appreciation for that,” says the CMO.

That’s why, even at the beginning of the Agile journey, stakeholders were consulted and kept in the loop about impending changes. The MOD recalls how AgileSherpas’ Ascension program for Marketing & Communications truly began: “we started by taking a very deep dive into what the current state was not only within our division, but also within our stakeholder group, and how they were feeling about the work that was being done and our performance for them. What were our areas of strength? And what were our weaknesses? We did interviews with a large number of stakeholders and our entire division. We did both a quantitative and qualitative analysis from an internal and external perspective.”

As a result, the organization had a baseline of the current state and the combined insights allowed for clear improvement recommendations that would guide the transformation.

“What was really interesting was that initial assessment. There was a difference in how our team felt, and how our stakeholders felt. Our team felt that we did not know how our work was connecting to the bigger vision for our division and for our organization. It's interesting that our stakeholders also didn't understand how our work was connected to our vision because they didn't know what our vision for our division was,” recalls the MOD.

A Strategic Roadmap Towards Agility

AgileSherpas supported the leadership team to truly understand the different factors impacting their operational and employee health in order to arrive at a roadmap for their transformation tailored to their own reality.

The outcome of this first period of work was an organizational construct that takes into account leader, manager, and Implementation Team dynamics to chart a path forward that has a higher chance of being adopted sustainably.

During the Ascension Design stage, one of the ways in which AgileSherpas ensured that teams felt like they had a stake in the new way of work that was being developed was by including them in the design process. For example, the first workshop all the team members participated in was a Futurespective – a visioning session that clarifies and documents the future state that teams are working toward.

As a result of the dedicated leadership sessions, the stakeholder feedback, and the strong connection with the teams, AgileSherpas and the organization were able to arrive at a promising roadmap that would guide their upcoming efforts as they ventured into Piloting.

Recommended reading: Learn more about AgileSherpas Ascensions

Piloting, Scaling & Embedding Agility:
Ascending to Agile Among the Teams

Ascending to Agile beyond a single team can be a challenging path, riddled with roadblocks, hurdles and obstacles. Teams and leaders must work together to overcome them for best results. The tailored AgileSherpas Ascension offering is designed to support teams and leaders on this exact path.

By testing the Agile transformation strategy iteratively to be sure that it works in real life (not just in a slide deck), AgileSherpas helps Ascension clients implement their plan in stages that reflect their agile maturity and context. This approach ensures that individuals, teams, and the marketing org are aligned, supported, and enabled for agility.

In 2023, Marketing & Communications progressed their Agile Transformation starting with 8-week training courses on Agile Marketing Fundamentals for teams, Agile Marketing Fundamentals & Agile Leadership for leaders as well as pilot programs to launch cross-functional teams.

Wide Scale Team Training and Coaching

As everyone received the same training, it was possible to establish a common Agile language across the organization. Everyone became certified in Agile through the International Consortium of Agile in order to hit the ground running when the application phase began. The Marketing Owner of the “RevUp” team recalls her training experience fondly: “I thought that was a great course. I got so much out of that. So I'm very glad that I got to be part of that.”

Those team members who were tasked with more advanced roles, such as prioritization, liaising with stakeholders, and supporting the day-to-day Agile implementation, received further training via a Train the Trainer program with AgileSherpas to support embedding agility at the organization.

Post training, the implementation teams were ready to begin their 90-Day Jumpstart program, supplemented by several months of coaching, in order to ensure teams were amply supported beyond the 90-day mark.

During the 90-Day Jumpstarts, teams set up their new processes through a series of workshops. Then they began running their new cycle of ceremonies with facilitation and guidance from an expert coach. Meanwhile, one-on-one coaching sessions with the team members and team leads provided specific input to resolve challenging situations as they emerged during this pivotal moment of transition. During the Jumpstarts, teams also began to lay the groundwork for tracking process metrics such as velocity, in order to understand their capacity and establish the predictability of their output.

These cross-functional implementation teams had more latitude to influence the strategic approach to the work, not just the tactical elements. During those pilots, “we went from a completely disengaged team who was frustrated by being order takers, to a more engaged team who was really doing what they do best every day. They were having the opportunity to be empowered and to be the subject matter expert that they were in a particular area to drive forward, ‘the how’ that would ultimately impact our business results,” recalls the CMO.

Recommended reading: Discover How AgileSherpas Uses the 70-20-10 Model for Learning Development in Coaching

Establishing Scaled Agile Communities of Practice and a Strategy Group

Every successful Agile marketing team has someone overseeing prioritization (usually called a Marketing Owner), and someone managing the process (usually called an Agile Lead). Here, the Marketing & Communications teams were no exception. However, with multiple implementation teams spinning up, it was critical to create a regular connection between these teams.

AgileSherpas’ Ascension helps establish this connection through the use of Strategy Groups, which proved essential to their transformation success. The Strategy Group brought together Marketing Owners and some directors to help identify and prioritize demand and prioritization.

In addition, Agile Communities of Practice were set up to connect the Marketing Owners and Agile Leads of each team, respectively, in a single forum.

“We've obviously had some issues working with the implementation teams, especially in projects, where we own part, they own part. But we've made a lot of progress in talking about those things and identifying gaps. We are having those conversations in our Agile Lead meeting and I think that's great,” reveals the Patient Growth Team Lead about the Agile Lead Community of Practice.

Without the establishment of a Strategy Group and Agile Communities of Practice to bring together the MOs and ALs, the alignment between active teams that relied on each other would be impossible.

Establishing Consistent Ways of Prioritization Across the System

The leader and implementation teams at the Marketing & Communications division focused their transformation efforts on moving away from being order takers and becoming strategic partners in their own right. They learned to practice ruthless prioritization based on value creation is a key tenet of this shift.

Demanding more information from clients about “the what” and “the why” associated with their requests is painful for teams who are used to blindly saying “yes,” but necessary to make sure they’re taking on the right work at the right time.

Providing her own perspective from the trenches, the Patient Growth Team Lead says, “[her] team has embraced Agile fully. [They] don’t just do everything all the time constantly, [they’re] able to plan appropriately instead of responding to everything the moment it hits [us].” This shift is a true testament to the different approach to prioritization that these teams are now taking.

The need for more consistent prioritization and capacity planning was made doubly important by the fact that the Marketing & Communications division faced resource constraints.

Balancing keeping stakeholders happy with creating value for the organization is still a struggle, one that sometimes requires weekly conversations with stakeholders. Offering minimum viable products (MVPs) instead of finished campaigns has helped strike a compromise with demanding stakeholders.

“We have other support teams asking to be part of this exciting work, because they have the same capacity issues. We see that the work that we're doing within our own transformation is helping not just our definition, it's helping the entire system to make a shift, a meaningful shift to making sure we're doing the right work at the right time with the resources that we have available,” says the MOD.

Establishing the Leadership Agile Team

Considering their journey and ascent to agility, the marketing leaders recall the work they realized they needed to do to build themselves up into an even more effective leadership team. They took the brave step to embrace Agile ways of working themselves, while also investing in 1:1 Leadership Coaching and workshop sessions.

“In hindsight, I wish that the leadership team would have gone through the transformation first. We had our Agile Coach come in a little after we had a couple of our implementation teams start. At the outset, we didn't really understand some of the nuances of the feedback we were getting from our teams. And when we started to work with our coach, we were like, I get it now,” remembers the CMO.

To set an example, the leadership team:

• Participated in workshops and training sessions to embrace the fundamentals of Agile
• Read the book Mastering Marketing Agility by Andrea Fryrear
• Received hands-on coaching one-on-one and as a leadership team
• Completed strategic work with a transformation consultant focused on navigating process assessment and team structure design

Recommended reading: Read an excerpt from Mastering Marketing Agility

Following training, the leadership team began to operate as an Agile team themselves. As a result, there was an enhanced understanding of Agile values and principles, because the team wasn’t just promoting Agile ways of working, they were practitioners. As they realized the Agile transformation’s success hinged on whether they were able to “walk the walk,” they were able to guide their teams more effectively.

The Director of System Communications accepted the challenge of acting as the Agile Lead on the newly minted Agile leadership team at Premier Health Marketing, a counterpart to the CMO’s Marketing Owner. After taking a Train the
Trainer course with AgileSherpas, the Director of System Communications felt prepared to lead the team’s processes by:

• Developing and maintaining strong discipline around the leadership meetings and the outcomes each touchpoint aimed at achieving
• Guiding and facilitating conversations to make them as productive as possible
• Supporting the team in prioritization (using techniques like MoSCoW analysis and others)
• Using root cause analysis templates to help the team arrive at decisions more efficiently 

The leadership team’s dedication to Agile didn’t go unnoticed by their teams. The Patient Growth Team Lead from the “RevUp” team shares the impact of the work leaders are putting into becoming Agile themselves. “It's the things that we were not really hearing about from the leader level anymore that feels the most impactful. It's the work that they were negotiating us out of. That is one of the biggest changes we're seeing – we don't need to spend time liaising about the work that doesn't come through. That is a huge benefit for our teams, because they are able to focus. It shows that we are doing the thing we set out to do, which is prioritize, prioritize, prioritize.”

The leadership team’s dedication to Agile didn’t go unnoticed by their teams. The Patient Growth Team Lead from the “RevUp” team shares the impact of the work leaders are putting into becoming Agile themselves. “It's the things that we were not really hearing about from the leader level anymore that feels the most impactful. It's the work that they were negotiating us out of. That is one of the biggest changes we're seeing – we don't need to spend time liaising about the work that doesn't come through. That is a huge benefit for our teams, because they are able to focus. It shows that we are doing the thing we set out to do, which is prioritize, prioritize, prioritize.”

Speaking specifically about her leadership team’s evolution, the MOD believes, 

Quarterly Big Room Planning

In June 2024, Marketing & Communications wrapped up their second Quarterly Big Room Planning (QBRP) event – the organic next step in their scaled Agile transformation journey. 

In preparation for this event, the CMO and the other leaders put in the time to prepare. In her view, it comes down to, “making sure that the organizational goals and strategic plan are well defined and achievable or measurable. The leadership team is working on our division strategic plan, because it all starts there for our annual plan to lead into our quarterly big room planning.”

The first day of QBRP begins with discussion related to the vision, mission, values and commitments of the organization. Leaders were committed to clarifying the link between the organizational goals – employee engagement, patient experience, and financial performance – to the impact that the marketing and communications organization can make.

Then, the team takes time to establish the connection between the strategic plan and what the implementation teams were doing to facilitate an easier process of prioritization. 

Both the MOD and Director of System Communications agree that their recent Big Room Planning event was a hit, but challenging in its own right.

“Our first effort at Quarterly Big Room planning was rough. It was rough because we still had projects coming in from all angles that we had to triage. But, I also think it was one of the single biggest success stories we've had,” says the MOD.

According to her, with just two Big Room Planning under their belt, the teams are already in a better place in terms of their prioritization. “It really has the ability to truly help our teams focus their efforts and understand where they need to be putting their resources across a three month period,” she continued.

As a result of QBRP, the Marketing Operations Director is already having tough conversations about capacity with stakeholders to communicate what is and isn’t feasible to get delivered in the upcoming quarter.

Cultural Impact on Marketing & Communications

All this work has had an immense impact on the culture at the Marketing & Communications division, and it’s spreading to other business units as well. The Director of System Communications describes the journey as an intervention for their division, rather than a transient corporate initiative that’s a priority one day and gone the next.

From the CMO’s perspective, “We've seen improved prioritization and alignment with the organizational goals and strategic plan. We've seen improvements to our ability to test and track and measure. That mind shift is so important. We're able to make data-driven decisions and have different conversations with our stakeholders based on the data. It allows us to be an advocate for our customers, whether that is our internal customers from an employee engagement perspective, or external customers from a consumer perspective to drive revenue.”

The MOD, who is part of the CMO’s leadership team, cites the concept of MVPs as a driver of this more iterative mentality taking root at Premier. “We didn’t understand the power of the MVP, testing and measurement before. Generally, AgileSherpas has helped us begin to question – What's the minimum viable product that we need to do to see if we're on the right path? And then we can iterate from there. That’s something difficult for our team to grasp because we have struggled thinking that MVP means it's not good enough. However, if we don't look at it from an MVP mindset, we're wasting resources that could be better used elsewhere,” says the MOD. 

Next Steps

With so much of their Agile journey behind them, what’s coming up next for this marketing division? Their commitment to continuous improvement and promoting agility on the system level is clear in their plans. 

Cross-Functional Teams Across Divisions

In the near future, we’re likely to see the Marketing & Communications expand their implementation beyond the marketing and communications division. The MOD believes this is a reflection of “true Agile leadership.” Namely, being able to use your expertise and sharing it with other areas of the system you’re operating within.

Ensuring Sustainable Growth and Agile Longevity

The Marketing and Communication division has been on the Agile journey for approximately a few years, and has managed to achieve amazing results in that time. Through their partnership with AgileSherpas, they’ve also protected their investment by taking steps to make sure the change becomes a permanent part of their operational culture. 

“AgileSherpas has respected the uniqueness of our organization, challenged us in the appropriate ways and continued to remind us that this is about progress over perfection. They have also helped us in supporting our cultural change initiatives and our employee engagement work. That's been fundamental. All of these things intersect. And I think that there was a tremendous amount of respect and a desire to lean in and better understand our organization and its intricacies. This ensures success not only within the marketing and communications division, but ultimately success on a broader scale with our stakeholders,” says the CMO.

The Director of System Communications sees the work done so far as a reinforcement of the organization’s commitment to these principles. He also sees Marketing and Communication’s role as an influential one within the organization when it comes to a broader shift towards, “making use of Lean practices across the organization. I just feel like this has been a time of strengthening the importance of working differently, stacking hands on priorities and being better stewards of our resources.”

The MOD also sees the journey inside the Marketing and Communications division as one that can be replicated beyond this part of the organization and recommends this as a next step.