5 Challenges a Marketer Would Face Working with Agile Teams

It was my first time working with a team practicing an Agile-based software development framework and I encountered several challenges from the very beginning.

This included getting into long arguments with the UX designers, software developers, data analysts, and sometimes even the Scrum master.

I was not used to working closely with this many cross-functional teams and a totally different work process, but I was forced to adapt quickly (pun not intended) or I would risk performing badly.

With the advances in technology, companies are becoming more digitally enabled, a growing need for software development work becomes a norm in many organizations.

Talents are required to have a variety of knowledge and skillset outside their core function to allow them to work better in cross-functional teams.

As a marketer in my mid-career, I had the opportunity to work with an Agile team practicing Scrum for almost 2 years to promote their web analytics and performance platform and grow their community.

In this article, I will be sharing with you 5 challenges I have faced and tips on overcoming them.

Hopefully, after digesting this article, you will not go through the stress I went through and get a flying start in your future interactions with an Agile team.

1. Being in the sprint system

Scrum teams usually have a majority of it made up of software developers and it is not realistic to have too much influence from them on marketing work.

Tasks that require creative thinking and market knowledge are usually out of a software developer’s usual experience and might negatively impact the quality and effectiveness of the marketing campaigns.

One example of this is when picking a name for a new product feature and how it is going to be launched.

There are many considerations in naming a product feature. From the alignment of the naming convention with its other features to the cultural consideration of the word, it should not be decided with democracy.

Rather, it should have sound reasoning behind the naming and no loopholes or weird angles where it might get misinterpreted.

Some software developers might think that launching the new product feature on Facebook might seem like a good idea based on their experience with its virality and reach.

But if the target audience is not of the relevant age group, the large numbers would not be able to make up for the ineffectiveness of the marketing campaign.

The solution here would be for the marketer to not be part of the sprint system.

Instead, they should synchronize their activities with the team and join their meetings to get updates on the progress of the development.

2. Being too agile

In Agile, a team is encouraged to take in feedback and iterate where appropriate. This allows for updates to crucial bugs and problems that arise from the unpredictability of dabbling in technology.

However, when the pace gets too fast, the marketer might not be able to pivot in time.

Can you imagine announcing to your customers that you will be releasing product feature X the next month but an influx of bugs from the previous release caused a delay in your upcoming product feature launch?

It will be a disaster!

When product updates and feature releases get switched around, whatever is communicated to the customers will be nullified.

The marketer would have to take additional measures and effort to recalibrate the customers’ expectations so their feelings of disappointment will be reduced.

In addition, the effort a marketer spends to rush for the launch will also be for naught.

To lower the rate of this happening, the marketer should build a deeper understanding of the product and the development team’s habits so they can better gauge whether the release will be on time.

The marketer should also prepare evergreen content in advance so that it can be brought forward to fill the gap of empty mind share when the planned content has to be postponed or dropped.

3. Maintaining the budget

Due to the Agile nature of Scrum teams, product feature releases might inadvertently get delayed.

Staying on track with the calendar of releases is hard when the direction changes every now and then.

Resources, in general, are usually cheaper when procured earlier.

One example is when you book for an event location, 3 months in advance, you might get a 30% discount but when you book in just 1 week before, you will not get any discount anymore.

In the worst case, if the product feature release gets delayed by 1 week, the original location booking will be obsolete and the marketer would have to scramble to find another location, which will most likely be more expensive due to a smaller availability of choices from the tight timeline.

Other than location, professional services like graphic design/copywriting/consulting usually charge a premium for rush/last-minute work.

This can happen when there is a sudden change to release a product feature and the marketer lacks the resources to prepare in time and hence the marketer will have to outsource some of the work.

To reduce the frequency of this happening, the marketer has to set the market launch at least 1 week or more from the team’s original release and maintain close communication with the development team.

4. Ensuring consistency with marketing strategy

One of the key principles in marketing is to be consistent in our brand promise and activities.

Working with a Scrum team makes it hard to achieve consistency because of the difference in the fundamentals of thinking.

A typical Scrum team may plan to release 3 new product features in 1 month and spend the next 6 months fixing all the bugs.

To the team, it may seem like they are really efficient and effective because they managed to release 3 new product features in a month.

However, this actually creates a lot of hype at the start but kills off the interest of the customers due to the inconsistency of the product feature releases, losing product mind share as time goes by.

Some customers may even decide to switch to a competitor, due to frustration from an incomplete product feature and the inability of the team to meet the expectations of customers from time to time.

Similarly to ensuring consistency, a Scrum team might place too much value on prioritizing impact and present circumstances.

When the team does so, they tend to deviate from the overall strategy. This change in strategy makes the product a jack of all trades but a master of none as the team chases to satisfy the customer’s requests.

Satisfying customer’s requests and fixing bugs are important, but this would give the more vocal customers the advantage. Listening from more vocal customers would then lead to bias judgment on the team’s end if proper research is not carried out and there is no data to support the claim.

To reduce this occurrence, the marketer would have to work closely with the team and share their take on the product release timings and influence the product road map.

By explaining the value of having consistent product feature releases and spreading the different types of content around the year, it would allow a more consistent mind share throughout the year.

5. The endless pushback

During the planning stage, tasks can get deprioritized when newer urgent circumstances present themselves.

Let’s say if you are trying to start new initiatives that will improve the marketing capabilities that will require the team’s help, the team tends to deprioritize it.

An example can be something like building a new webpage to feature the products or a feature to collect more marketing data for segmentizing.

It will get deprioritized and moved into the backlog without a date for completion because it is not customer facing and hence the team does not feel a sense of urgency to complete it.

When this happens, it is recommended that the marketer shares in detail how this new feature will benefit the customer in the Sprint planning session or in meetings.

Put a date of completion to target for and link it to other campaigns or launch.

One way of linking it to another campaign is to say that when the next product feature is launched, the marketer will drive traffic to the product/website, and hence the webpage/feature has to be up by then to maximize the data collected.

Every team is unique and with the different work processes they adopt, the team dynamics and working style might totally change.

The team may be subjected to a change in team members when people leave the company, a drop in headcount which will stress the team more, or even have internal fights.

To do their job well, the marketer has to:

• Not be part of their system if it does not make sense
• Understand their team’s habits
• Understand the product well and know the effort required to build it
• Maintain close communication with the team
• Set buffer time for the product launches
• Prepare evergreen content in advance
• Influence and consult on the product road map
• Set date of completion for all tasks
• Increase the consequences for when a marketing request is not completed

Good luck and thank you for reading, if you found this useful, you might want to check out the article below on how I grew a SaaS community after I overcame these challenges.