Agile working in everyday agency life

Against this background, agility as a working principle appears to be a ray of hope for an entire industry. On the one hand, because specialists who close their own know-how gaps can thus be directly integrated into the workflow. And on the other hand, because agile processes promise to help with the structured and economical management of elusive projects.

In order to successfully apply agile methods in everyday agency work, it is important to know these nine aspects:

1. maxim

• Agency, client and other services see themselves as a team at eye level.
• All project parties contribute actively and responsibly.
• Whether CEO or intern - all team contributions are relevant, valued, used, but also critically scrutinized.

Essence: A team is responsible for the success of agile projects. Vanities must be thrown overboard and all members must be sworn in - across disciplines and positions.

2. team setup

• All disciplines are on board right from the start. Flat, permeable hierarchies and network structures strengthen commitment and motivation.
• The team functions in a self-organized and self-organizing manner. A single point of contact per party keeps the threads together and keeps an eye on timings and processes.
• Interdisciplinary work is facilitated when there are shared physical or virtual spaces for exchange.

Essence: The clear definition of roles in the team and a transparent organization are a must in the set-up of agile processes.

3. project order

• The project order is carefully reviewed in advance by all parties. And scrutinized.
• The kick-off brings the entire team together for a binding briefing. If necessary, adjustments are made together.
• Instead of a cumbersome master plan, there are many small units of work.

Essence: The briefing is challenged by all team parties and respected afterwards.

4. process

• Clear goals and binding guidelines structure the process. Daily coordination allows for a constant workflow and conceptual rethinking within individual phases.
• A simple, binding process architecture and lean documentation of the work steps are essential - the team must always know where it stands and who has to do what and when.
• Efficient, goal-oriented work needs a powerful collaboration tool that can be maintained, administered and used by all parties (e.g. Confluence, Trello).

Essence: To successfully manage complex projects, the agile process must be straightforward. Fragmentation is to be avoided.

5. decisions

• At every step, every project phase, it must be clear to everyone in the team who decides.
• Decisions must be comprehensible for all parties.
• Each decision decides a sub-project within the overall order.

Essence: When it comes to decision-making, competence beats job titles. Transparency helps with the acceptance of decisions.

6. learn to fail

• Agility needs a strong culture of mistakes. All lessons learned help the team to become better and move the project forward.
• Instead of dwelling on mistakes, look forward. And made.

Essence: Agile work processes require a new attitude. For example, in terms of allowing mistakes or the expected result.

7. timing

• Binding deadlines still exist. Only the time frame is used more flexibly and efficiently.
• Planning and work is done in small, clearly defined work steps that build on each other.
• Short work intervals identify problems early on - the team can respond in a timing-appropriate manner.

Essence: Contrary to what the name suggests, agile projects are characterized by commitment and deadline precision.

8. budget and costs

• In contrast to the waterfall principle, economic overview is possible in real time.
• By being involved in the process, the client knows the budgetary effort - discrepancies are avoided.
• An alert system is advisable. It warns in the workflow if budgets are exceeded.

Essence: Agile processes also allow accurate forecasting of costs. Nevertheless, it makes sense to have a monetary buffer at the beginning of the project.

9. result

• Thanks to the visualization of communication solutions in different phases or the prototyping of digital applications, results are already put through their paces during the process.
• The active involvement of the client promotes consensus and prevents unpleasant surprises in the result.
• The integration of different disciplines increases creativity in solution development as well as the quality of the final output.

Essence: In an age in which communication, among other things, is increasingly merging with digital services, it is important to break new ground and accept that excellent results often only come about through the active collaboration of all parties.

Authors:

Markus Hammer is Creative Director at Notch Interactive. Before that, he worked for creative agencies in Zurich and Hamburg and ran a visual communication office for several years.

Christian bacon is Competence Center Manager in Business Engineering, Digital Business and Agile Project Management as well as lecturer and speaker at three universities of applied sciences in Zurich and Bern. Baconand.ch

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