A Marketer’s Guide to Agile Development – Scrum Roles

The Kvetcher – Your theme song is “Nobody Knows The Trouble I Seen.” Yes, progress can be hard-won. It’s not that we don’t care about your petty frustrations — oh wait. Yes, it is. We just want to know if the baby’s delivered – not a full description of each labor pain.

The Platespinner – Your theme song is “Piece of My Heart”. You’re calling into the scrum — but not all of you. You not only have us on mute – you’re on a second conference call on the other line, switching back and forth. Plus, you’re talking to the Sears dishwasher repairman. Pick a lane, buddy.

The Late Night FM Radio Host – Your theme song is “Papa Can You Hear Me?”. Um, no we really can’t. That low, meandering, mellow murmur, the “uhhhhs”, the long pauses, may be sexy and ultra-hipster on midnight community radio. Now it’s 8 am and you’re at work. Speak up – you’re telling us how your tasks are progressing. Not about how “Dark Side of the Moon” was mixed.

The Perennially Surprised – Your theme song is “What’s Going On?”. The scrum happens every day, same time, in roughly the same order. Not exactly a pop quiz, is it? Don’t put us through three and a half minutes of your mental journey that eventually ends at “no new updates”.

A Marketer’s Guide to Agile Development – The Ten Commandments for Marketers

Agile is thy methodology – the way, the truth, the absolute shiznet to thy development team. Thou shalt not use any other methodology – at least not here.

Thou shalt not bitch about the lack of up-front requirements – neither shalt thou commit scope creep.

Keep holy the release day. It’s ain’t movin’. It especially ain’t movin’ for thee.

Honor thy development team. Seriously. Some morning Dunkins, a toy, a damn pizza wouldst not kill thee.

Thou shalt not kill the development schedule with late requirements.

Thou shalt test. And test some more. Thou art not a representative sample of thy user base. Truly I say unto you, thou art not.

Thou shalt provide feedback when needed rather than when convenient for thee, lest thine development team proceed without it.

Thou shalt not hire a contractor to circumvent thy development team. Remember thou art part of the same tribe.

Thou shalt remain in scrum for its duration and not bugger off once thy project was discussed eight minutes in.

Thou shalt not covet your colleague’s project’s prioritization on the sprint by seeking to bogart the development cycle for thyself.