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A Marketer's Guide to Agile Development

A Marketer’s Guide to Agile Development – The Balance of Power Part 3

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In Part 1, we had a marketer seemingly off his meds mistaking the development team for short order cooks.  In Part 2, we had a developer drunk on cowboy code, smugly delivering what marketing would have asked for if only they had his superior vision.

There could have been a third scenario where the hyperactive marketer and the arrogant developer were in the same scene, but that would be too divisive.   Here goes:

Marketer (played by Bette Midler):   Yo, Poindexter – this is not what we talked about.   This landing page looks like my ferret sicked up.  What the hell is this?

Harried Business Analyst (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman):  Okay guys….   Wait – you know what?  This is not going to end well.  Maybe I don’t want to be in this scene.  In fact,  I’m calling in sick from this scene. (exits)

Developer (played by Shia Lebeouf):   Your RHN was a little light on details, so it was necessary to iterate some continuous improvement on that bad boy.  

Marketer:   My RHN?

Developer:  Requirements on Hooter’s Napkin.

Marketer:   That napkin was so freakin’ agile, my friend  – and more documentation than I’ve ever seen come out of your shop.  But this call to action makes it look like we want them to renew their truck registration at the DMV.  THIS ISN’T WHAT I ORDERED – er, I mean wanted.  

Developer:  What you wanted didn’t match my vision of deep cool.   You said they had to be able to submit a webform on the page, and they can.   And preview all the products.  And personalize them with virtual logos they design on the fly. 

Marketer:  Customers don’t want that.  What makes you think my customers want that?

Developer:   Because it’s cool.  Deeply so.   Customers want cool.  It’s not our fault you blow into work every morning 30 minutes after scrum ends.  Non-attendance means acceptance.  No feedback means acceptance.  So does arguing with any code that’s already through QA.

Marketer:   What are you guys, the Borg?

Developer:  Hell, no.  The Borg was too centralized to be Agile.

Marketer:  Screw it, I don’t need you.  I’ll just have the agency build it.

“Us vs. Them” mentality exists in every business.  But maintaining and nurturing the chasm just isn’t – well, Agile.  I love this quote attributed to Alistair Cockburn, an original Agile Manifesto signatory: “Always remember, there is only us.”

A Marketer's Guide to Agile Development

A Marketer’s Guide to Agile Development – The Balance of Power Part 1

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An old boss of mine used to have a small wooden plaque on his desk.   It said “JDI” – “Just Do It”.   Not in the Nike “you go, girl”, self-empowerment sense.    More in the “just because I’ve finished talking doesn’t mean you get a turn now” sense.   Anything short of “right away!” and he would silently nudge the plaque in your direction.   Good times, good times.   Marrying up that imperious client attitude up with Agile development would probably be a big mistake.   But here goes: Agile –  The Motion Picture”

Hotshot Marketer  (played by Alec Baldwin):   What up dawg?  Ding dong ding dong, yo!

Harried Business Analyst (played by Ben Stiller):  Dude, nobody talks like that anymore.   And you’re from, like, Duluth, aren’t you?   Anyway, what are we building today?

Hotshot Marketer:   “So here’s the logo – it’s going to go here, and you’re gonna make it blink and jump out of the frame and turn into rocket fire and then Yoda from Star Wars.  Or maybe smoke then Harry Potter.  Or those Top Gear guys – anyway, we’re still hammering out the talent rights, I’ll get back to you on that.    And be sure to code it in Flash, just to stick it to Steve Jobs on that iPad thing – you gotta get it done, too, ‘cause I already bought the media – and…

Harried Business Analyst:    Well, that’s a risk, we sort of have to nail down who’s jumping out of the frame if we’re going to finish…

Helpful Developer (played by Paul Rudd):   Hey, I have a suggestion – if we change just a few things, move this over here, let us handle the coding, we could gain the flexibility of…

Hotshot Marketer:   “Yeah, thanks bro, I’m totally not hearing that.  I want what I want.   Whose page?   My page.  Who’s the customer?  I’m the customer, right?   Whoa – I’m late for the links.   I got your requirements right here on this napkin – ignore the Hooters logo, of course.  Just do it, babe.”