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The Agile Agency How Lean and Agile Will Transform Your Creative Agency
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The Agile Agency
How Lean and Agile Will Transform Your
Creative Agency
Bart Vermijlen
This book is for sale at http://leanpub.com/theagileagency
This version was published on 2013-12-09
This is a Leanpub book. Leanpub empowers authors and
publishers with the Lean Publishing process. Lean
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©2013 Bart Vermijlen
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Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Why Is This Book Relevant? . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Why Did I Write This Book? . . . . . . . . . . . 2
About the Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
How Did I Write This Book? . . . . . . . . . . . 4
What Is the Structure of This Book? . . . . . . . 5
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 What Is Agile? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Roots of Agile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Individuals and Interactions over Processes and
Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation 11
Responding to Change over Following a Plan . . 12
3 Interlude: Complexity and What Art Can Teach
Us about Agile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Coincidence? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
CONTENTS
4 Say Goodbye to the Masterpiece Mentality . . 17
Nec Plus Ultra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Installing the Sink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Waterfall Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The 3 Week Fail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5 User Stories. Defining Scope in an Agile Way 25
Enter: User Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
The Client Brief vs. User Stories . . . . . . . . . 28
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6 What Is Scrum? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Timeboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Artefacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
The Boot and Shoe Repair Shop . . . . . . . . . 38
Scrum vs. Waterfall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
7 Scrum Principles and Practices . . . . . . . . . 42
Transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Inspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Planning Poker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Definition of Done . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Demo or Die . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
8 Applying Agile and Scrum in an Agency Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
The Daily Scrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
CONTENTS
Demo or Die . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
The Scrum Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
The Burndown Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Budget and Backlog Prioritization. Scope Can
Change over Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Retrospectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
The Role Threesome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Why Account Managers Are Pigs . . . . . . . . 56
9 What Is Lean? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Optimize the Whole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Focus on Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Eliminate Waste and Create Flow . . . . . . . . 61
Build Fast, Learn Fast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Keep Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
10 The Lean Bicycle Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
It’s Not Working . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Traffic Jam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Work in Progress Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Pull vs. Push . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Slack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Cycle Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Stop Starting, Start Finishing . . . . . . . . . . . 67
11 What is Kanban? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
12 Applying Lean and Kanban in an Agency Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
CONTENTS
The Lean Startup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Business Model Canvas and Lean Canvas . . . . 75
Work in Progress Limits and Lead Time . . . . . 78
13 Case Study: Using the Agile Manifesto as a Tool 83
Where Are the Problems? . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Where Are the Solutions? . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
In Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
How? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
The Results? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
14 Case Study: Scrum for Rock Bands. How to
Measure Progress When Recording . . . . . . 88
The Band Splits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Building a Backlog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Estimating the Weight: Planning Poker . . . . . 89
Prioritizing the Backlog and Scope Creep . . . . 90
Measuring Progress with the Burndown Chart . 92
The Result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
15 Case Study: Using Scrum with a Hyper Fixed
Deadline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
The War Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Bring In the Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
The Result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
16 Case Study: How to Mix Scrum and Kanban . 103
Why Was This a Perfect Project to Test-Drive? . 103
How Did We Get Started? . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Did This Kanban Board Do the Trick? . . . . . . 106
CONTENTS
What Was the Result? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
17 Case Study: Using a Visual Control System to
Manage a Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
A Visual System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Side Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Next Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
18 Case Study: Why You Should Play Games at
Work. Gamestorming for Retrospectives . . . 116
Bad retrospectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Good Retrospectives and Gamestorming . . . . 117
Actions for Retrospectives . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
What Happens When You Start Gamestorming . 120
19 Case Study: Why Stop with Production? . . . 123
Mapping Iterative Working on the Whole Value
Chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Google and Their Agile Creativity . . . . . . . . 125
Mindtunes. Agile Creativity Applied. . . . . . . 126
20 Case Study: Culture Hacking. Why Agile and
Lean Actually Work in an Agency Environment 129
What is a Culture Hack? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
The Pop-up Inspiration Session . . . . . . . . . 132
The Digital Production Checklist . . . . . . . . 133
21 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
CONTENTS
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
1 Introduction
Why Is This Book Relevant?
Nowadays you can’t manage a project in a creative agency
the same way as 20 years ago. This book is about an alternative approach on projects, processes and collaboration
culture.
What has changed? First of all, the type of projects. It is
not just about print, television or radio anymore. Relevant
projects these days are much more complex and are deeply
related to technology and innovation.
Secondly, the economical situation has changed. Agencies
and clients don’t have the same budgets as they used
to. This results in a need for maximum efficiency and
productivity.
Thirdly, things are speeding up. 365 is the new 360¹. Communication is hyperreactive. Campaigns and products now
have to be made in only weeks or even days. The line
between advertising campaigns and products starts to blur.
It is the end of advertising as we know it.²
¹http://www.psfk.com/2009/06/goodbye-360-degrees-hello-365-days.html
²Rei Inamoto on http://www.fastcocreate.com/1683292/the-end-ofadvertising-as-we-know-it-and-what-to-do-now
Introduction 2
Finally, due to all these circumstances, the concept of “an
advertising agency” is under fire. This book can help agencies redefine themselves by transforming their company
culture with lean and agile.
Why Did I Write This Book?
When people ask me “what is the one thing you would
like to do within the next 5 years?” I always reply that
one day I would like to write a book about my view on
project management. In June 2013 I had been blogging for
one year on lean and agile and I made a deal with myself. I
would write two pages a day during July and August, and
see where I would end up. The result is now in your hands.
Why about lean and agile? When I started as a project
manager I had read the default books about project management, which handled every project as a series of closed
phases, the so called waterfall model. But as soon as I
started implementing these methods, I got stuck. Deadlines
were never met, and gradually I became more frustrated
about my work. Was it really my mistake? All these project
management books had a rather dogmatic view on projects,
and as these approaches never worked, the cause had to be
me I guessed.
But then I met a senior project manager who talked to me
extensively and full of passion about lean and agile during
lunch. A new world opened up. It wasn’t my fault. The
problem was the project management approach I used.
Introduction 3
Scrum was the most popular agile toolbox at that time.
So I took a two day scrum master certification. I started
using scrum right away, and from day one I witnessed how
projects went live better, faster, with higher quality, and
most important, with less stress and pressure for the people
working on it.
From that day on, I started evangelizing about agile, scrum,
lean and everything related to it. I read a whole deal
of books, started blogging about it, and now I am even
teaching classes at two colleges. Resulting in this book you
are currently reading.
About the Title
The title “The Agile Agency” is a plea for your agency to
become agile and to grow your company culture around
values such as transparency, continuous improvement and
trust.
Originally, I considered a different title for this book.
“Leap”. This title is not only an acronym for “lean and agile
practices”. It also refers to the legendary words by Neil
Armstrong when walking as the first human being on the
moon in 1969: “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant
leap for mankind”. I believe strongly that when you start
applying lean and agile step by step in your organization,
you have to use small steps. But as soon as you start doing
it, this means a giant leap for your organization’s culture.
Introduction 4
And that what it is all about. The guts to change your
organization through lean and agile.
However, I did a small A/B test on doubtcloud.com³ prior
to the release of the book, and “The Agile Agency” acquired
the most votes.
As the subtitle reveals, this book is written in the first place
for people who work at creative agencies. Project Managers, Digital Producers, Account Managers, Creatives,…
I deliberately don’t use the term advertising agency or
communication agency. Probably for the same reasons as
the Cannes Lions changed their name from International
Advertising Festival⁴ into International Festival of Creativity. Nowadays it is not just about advertising anymore. It
is about creativity. But not only the large network agency
can use this book. Also the small web agency or 5 people
boutique development shop will benefit from agile and
lean.
How Did I Write This Book?
This book is written in a lean way. It is only a photograph
of how I think about things at this moment, and it was
written in just 2 months. You could call it a “minimum
viable version” of the book. You will learn further on in
this book what this actually means.
³http://doubtcloud.com/zgb
⁴http://www.fastcompany.com/1763421/cannes-festival-name-changereflects-bigger-messier-reality-ad-industry
Introduction 5
Parts of it were already published on my blog http://
www.bartvermijlen.com as separate blog posts. This book
however tries to tie them together as a comprehensive
story.
What Is the Structure of This Book?
You could see the structure of the book as a house.⁵
Chapters 2 to 5 are about agile, and chapters 9 and 10 about
lean. They form the foundations for the rest of the book.
The chapters on scrum and kanban are built on these, each
as an example framework or toolbox of their fundament.
⁵The house is also a classic representation of Lean thinking. http://www.
vision-lean.com/lean-manufacturing/lean-house/
Introduction 6
The roof, the second part of the book (chapters 13 to 20),
consists of case studies based on both the foundations as
the walls.
If you already have basic knowledge about lean and agile,
you can go straight to the chapters about scrum and kanban. If that isn’t new either, you can go directly to the case
studies.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank a fine league of proofreaders for
their constructive feedback on this book. Jef Cavens, Tom
De Bruyne, Jürgen De Smet, Kris Hoet, Louise Martens,
Jan Seurinck and Karel Vinck. This book is only a start.
Consider yourself as a proofreader from now on. I hope I
will receive lots of comments so I can update the book in
the future. I will also try to add more relevant cases, giving
it more depth with every new edition.
Finally, thanks to Kwint De Meyer for the illustrative work
and Liselore for being the best critical editor you can
imagine.