Good morning Marketer, what’s better for agile marketing – Scrum or Kanban?

When it comes to agile workflows, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution – but it helps to consider your company culture, team size, and the type of team you lead before jumping headlong into an agile framework.

“A lot of marketers have started agile marketing with no framework at all,” writes agile marketing coach Stacey Ackerman. “While that may work in a really small, lean organization that is well-aligned to the agile marketing principles and values already, most marketers are transitioning from a traditional culture, and therefore benefit from a proven way of implementing agile marketing.” Below are considerations Ackerman urges marketers should think about before deciding on an agile approach: 

Company size and culture. Larger organizations may be more apt to adopt a Scrum approach – especially since it’s similar to the process they already have in place. “If your company is used to a lot of formality and process, moving to Kanban will feel like you’re being thrown into the middle of the ocean without a safety net,” she adds. Likewise, for a small team of people – say, three or four – Scrum may not be the best option due to its nature of requiring a number of specific roles within the team structure. 

Ability to plan. Scrum can be difficult to implement because of its sprint time boxes, which could be a major hindrance when working on projects that change every few days or few hours, Ackerman says. “Kanban works great for teams that get a lot of requests frequently that can’t be planned. I’ve seen Kanban effectively implemented for social media teams who deliver multiple times a day, or teams that run online promotions that need to change with a lot of regularity.”

Type of team. “There are two main types of teams I see in agile marketing — support teams and cross-functional teams,” says Ackerman. Support teams, such as content marketers, may span several areas within a department or with external clients, making Kanban a worthy approach because the work can be distributed in the order it’s requested. On the other hand, cross-functional teams, which may include a strategist, content marketer, graphic designer, web developer, etc., might find a Scrum approach better suited to managing a campaign end-to-end.

Regardless of which agile framework you choose, it’s important to foster a healthy partnership with internal teams to empower stronger collaboration. 

Taylor Peterson
Deputy Editor