Agile Creativity Unleashed
In 2015, Vistaprint partnered with Emergn, a digital business services firm, to bring Agile practices to their technology teams. Witnessing impressive results, attention turned to the Marketing team, where the internal creative team was identified as a potential bottleneck. Thus, we embarked on an experiment to introduce an agile mindset to a creative organization.
Through training sessions and embedded coaches, I led the NA Email Marketing Team's Agile transformation. Equipped with Agile principles and the Kanban model, I became an advocate and received 1:1 coaching to motivate and shift mindsets.
The impact was significant: faster time-to-market without compromising quality and a transformation of client relationships from customers to partners. Transparency allowed team members to see the project pipeline, identify decision-makers, and regularly reflect on and improve our processes.
The results
Lead time: Time it takes to move a project from “on deck” to “complete”
-83% Overall
Cycle Time: Time it takes from when a creative team starts work on a project to when it’s “complete.
-73% Overall
The Impact
This transformative journey provided invaluable insights into effectively managing creative work. The knowledge and experience gained from the creative Agile experiment were profound, altering my perspective on how creative work should flow within teams. It heightened my awareness of diverse communication and collaboration methods, and honed my abilities as a decisive, critical thinker and thoughtful leader and mentor in the creative realm and beyond. Key lessons learned include empowering teams, embracing transparency, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
As a result of the successful Agile transformation with the NA email creative team, I was asked to share my journey. The ups and downs and how collectively we achieved the results together. I joined one of the agile coaches at the time, Staci Dubovik, at Aetna Healthcare in Hartford, Connecticut on a story telling tour.
With success in the NA Email Team, I extended my Agile practices and joined the Site Merchandising Team. As an Agile Champion, I facilitated collaboration, streamlined workflows, and achieved remarkable results. By successfully introduced agile methodologies into the site merchandising team, we achieved a significant change to a partnership culture resulting in improved efficiencies by 63%.
Special thanks to David Grabel who was my agile mentor and trusted coach.
Stage: Myself onstage at Aetna Healthcare.
Note: I was lucky enough to have an intern during the summertime while the Agile experiment was taking place. This is their thank you note that means the world to me.