Unplanned Work is Part of Modern Marketing
No marketing team is safe, no matter what industry you’re in. We can’t control when work will get thrown our way, but we can reduce the disruptions it causes. It’s time to focus on what we can control: improving marketing’s internal workflows.
Unplanned Work Creates Collaboration Drag
84% of marketing leaders and employees report experiencing “high collaboration drag.” This demand for excessive levels of interactions often happens when seemingly perfect plans get derailed by new input. Better plans won’t prevent these disruptions; marketers need better tools within their own ways of working to deal with the inevitability of the unplanned.
Dealing with the Drag of the Unplanned
Modern marketing is dynamic and unpredictable. Even the best-laid plans can be disrupted by unforeseen events, causing significant collaboration challenges and workflow interruptions. While it’s impossible to eliminate unplanned work entirely, there are effective strategies that marketing teams can implement to manage and mitigate its impact. Here are three actionable steps to help your team better handle the drag of the unplanned.
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Annual plans are outdated almost instantly, and they’re the most prone to being derailed. With quarterly planning cycles focused on minimally viable, metric-focused deliverables, disruptions become far less disruptive.
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Stakeholders are rarely aligned in their needs or goals, but marketing is expected to cater to them all. Through more rigorous stakeholder management, there are fewer priorities to juggle and less opportunities for conflicting demands.
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Marketing’s work doesn’t get the visibility or attention it deserves. By systematically surfacing goals, activities, and success metrics, we can protect our teams from well-meaning external inputs.
Created by Marketers Just Like You
If you work in marketing and are tired of doing only what’s urgent – and neglecting what’s really important – this system is for you.
It’s designed and taught by professional marketers who know what it’s like to spend weeks building out a campaign plan, only to have it blown up as soon as sales has a new idea.
Well structured, professional course and I feel confident applying new practices after completing it. Big shout out to our instructor who really customized the course to our organization, so we could see from start what to change, where to improve to be fully Agile. Team exercises and homework after each chapter were all beneficial and helped me understanding each topic better. Big thanks, it was a great experience.
I now feel like I have a good understanding of the concepts and how to put them into practice. The course content was engaging and informative. I'm excited to see the way my marketing team transformas as we move to Agile. Highly recommend!"
Our trainers were outstanding! Through this training I was able to learn more about Agile Coaching and Facilitating, grow personally and professionally, and simply have fun. They were able to create an environment where everyone could voice their thoughts/opinions and feel comfortable doing so. I am blown away by how the training felt like it flew by and I didn't want it to end.
It was a great experience. I knew almost nothing about the topic when I entered, but our coach was able to bring me along with more experienced participants in a way that we all got something out of it. I'm grateful for the experience and look forward to taking it forward!
The course was nicely articulated, the trainer very accommodative and extremely prepared, easy to follow thought the lessons on line and always eager to have us engaged. Not one single lesson was boring despite the use of Zoom, very interactive sessions, and nice group excises that made us learn and bond.
It was an absolute pleasure for me to take this course. Our trainer did a great job leading the sessions, and each week was a fine balance of course material, peer exchange, and exercises. The course was engaging and, at times, inspiring. It was truly valuable for me beyond just the coursework.
In just 3 months, we are seeing a significant improvement in project duration and while our project volume is actually increasing across all of our Agile teams
AgileSherpas helped us build an Agile culture by giving us a strong sense of the lay of the land in terms of what Agile really means, how Agile teams behave and how we can evolve from we are to where we need to be.
Enrolling in the Agile Marketing Leadership course was a game-changer for me. The practical insights and actionable strategies I gained have transformed my leadership approach. Highly recommended!
First let me say our instructor was able to break down the obtuseness of Agile into understandable blocks of how to put together manageable marketing teams and integrate them into solving issues for diverse divisions of our company. She was skilled in offering solutions to issues that may cause road-blocks or painpoints. Her attitude was always over-the-top positive. I look forward to her insight as we continue our journey in our 90 day testing period.
As a Creative Manager, I have been intrigued by Agile for almost 10 years but didn't know where to start. In just 8 short weeks I have an excellent understanding of the principles and how to start to apply them. I only wish I would have done it sooner.
Reading "Mastering Marketing Agility" made the benefits of Agile clear -- and choosing AgileSherpas was the right decision. With their guidance, we'd summit the biggest challenges of implementing Agile marketing: moving away from the mantra of "how we've always done things" to more efficient, effective workflow management.
The experience was great. The course made us reflect on what we can do better and how we can do things better. I like that it's very interactive and fun. Our instructor had real mastery of the subject and delivered the course very well. Considering that we were different marketing groups in 1 company (coming from different countries and even different work structures), our instructor was able to piece things together and present her perspective in relation to the realities of our organization. It is a great way to start teaching teams to shift paradigms and get out of their comfort zones.
I had previously completed Certified Scrum Product Owner certification training, but this course was vital to my understanding of how to apply agile framework to my marketing work. The course leveraged case studies and group activities, combined with an informal lecture style that was both engaging and informative. I particularly appreciated that AgileSherpas take a flexible approach to scrum - the goal isn't to apply a framework rigidly, but to be thoughtful and informed as you concerned what will work best for your team and organization. Thanks for all of your support!
Our trainer did a great job in explaining Agility to our Online Customer Experience team. She gave us a good mix of theory, exercise and reflection. She called out misperceptions gently but clearly and was very appreciative towards the group. She was also ready to adapt to the language and marketing approach we use internally, which helped tremendously in bringing people on board with the new concepts. It was great working with her and AgileSherpas.
Agile Sherpas' Train the Trainer program was easily the best training experience I have had in a decade. The mix of activities, ability to immediately apply lessons, and customizations to our challenges enabled real skill building to occur. I saw growth in every single participant, myself included, from the Monday where we got started to the Friday where we concluded. I cannot wait to see the positive outcomes that will come from a renewed coach approach and improvements to my agile ceremonies, staff meetings, and facilitated workshops. The opportunities to level up as a result of what I learned are endless. I would recommend this course to anyone looking to collaborate with others to achieve success, personally and professionally.
Until I took the course, Agile felt mostly like conceptual buzzwords to me. But, the hands-on exercises helped me mentally take agile from theory to real-world application. So, I have even more excitement about applying agile ways of working to our marketing department to generate powerful outcomes for our customers and employees.
The Leading with Agility Course really helped to cement the leadership capabilities & values needed to enable agility and how we as leaders must embrace new roles in order to bring about change. Currently at the start of our Agile transformation, the course has provided me with both practical tools & frameworks, alongside the mindset required to guide the marketing department through this change. Would highly recommendour trainers and the course to my peers - their wisdom, knowledge and facilitation were second to none.
Our AgileSherpas coach was joining all of our ceremonies and helping us resolve situations right then and there. We worked very closely with them to establish the value of Agile, set up the new processes, and skill up the whole team in preparation for what was to come. Other training is more technical, whereas AgileSherpas leadership and team training was focused on marketing.
The Agile Fundamentals course helped shape and consolidate Agile marketing concepts in practical ways that I can apply to my role and organization. I would recommend this course to both marketing professionals and organisations embarking on an agile transformation journey
AgileSherpas helped us cut the time it took to scale Agile out to more parts of the marketing organization massively.
Our trainer was upbeat and engaging. Training in a methodology we're already employing can be a tough pill to swallow for employees who already have limited bandwidth, but this class was absolutely worth the time and effort. I have found each week that I'm referencing and applying lessons almost immediately following class, and, what's even better, the implementation of these strategies has been cumulative, where I've not cycled through them, but built upon them each week. Thank you for the thoughtful instruction and authentic conversation, I have come away with a new perspective on and understanding of Agile methodology.
The course was a great mix of concepts, practice, and action. The training was engaging and interactive. I certainly took some concepts away that will be put into practice. Thank you!
A highly recommended and extremely valuable for marketing and project management techniques. Our trainer was outstanding and took every opportunity to make the content real for my unique role. Sessions are to the point without drag-on. My deepest thanks for this insightful experience.