Agile Design & Marketing Manifesto
1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
2. Responding to change over following a plan.
3. Testing, measuring and data over opinions and conventions.
4. Adaptive and iterative campaigns over Big-bang campaigns.
5. Customer aspects over personal favorites.
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What is the Design Marketing Manifesto?
Everything in this manifesto started with the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. More and more people begin to talk inside the IT community about Agile. Not all people in the community are aware that these thoughts are based on the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Besides IT, other domains are starting to talk about Agile and agility. But what is behind this, and from where are these thoughts coming, and why is Agile becoming popular now?
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development was defined in 2001 by 17 software developers who met at a resort in Snowbird, Utah in the US. They all followed and shared similar values in software development. They defined the Manifesto and the 12 principles as a shared understanding of their way to develop software in an increasingly complex environment.
Most of the software developers in Utah were also part and founders of lightweight software development methods, the most famous ones today are Scrum and XP.
Scrum
When Scrum was written in the early 1990s, it was focusing on software development. But Scrum also developed further and in nowadays it is not only for software development; it also gets a popular framework in other domains. The last update was 2020 and is now adapted to generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems in all domains.
You can find more information about the latest Scrum Framework at the official page: https://scrumguides.org/; the core of Scrum is written in only 11 pages.
Not everyone develops software
Since the Agile Manifesto is software-focused, it often generates confusion for other domains. So we (as a marketing team) came up with the idea to adapt the Manifesto for software development to our purpose in design and marketing at Axon Active. We held some workshops to understand the range of ideas and thoughts and came up with our own version. Because not everyone only develops software, it should also be understandable for other domains such as marketing and design, making the manifesto more open to others, including ICT, ISMS, HR, management, and sales.
Complex world
In a complex world with a global, dynamic market [Niels Pflaeging. (2015). Organize for Complexity - Keynote by Niels Pflaeging at Scrum Gathering Prague], these values are valid in software development AND all other domains with complexity and higher density in a global market. Ultimately, we all have the same problems to solve in complex situations.
Our own home
The idea of this manifesto is not to compete with the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, but to build our own home for us as a team in which we can share our thoughts further, not just for software development. The ideas Follow the manifesto for Agile Software Development but mainly replace the word “software” by product or campaign. It should help us with ideas and thoughts, and with understanding what Agile in this context means and how it can help us.
Iterative and incremental
This means working customer-centric, learning and developing iteratively and incrementally [Scrum & Kanban. (2016). Iterative, Incremental, Big Bang.] in a growing VUCA world, and not using big bang approaches that usually shoot past the target. It also means focusing on return on investment and on customers, creating value and outcome.
A Manifesto
Like Scrum, the Manifesto may have more iterations, but we are talking about the mindset and the values in the Manifesto. If we understand them, then the adaption is not urgent anymore. Understanding the idea and living it is more important.
Business agility
Finally, we should not talk about Agility in software, we should talk about business agility.
[Klaus Leopold. (2018). Rethinking Agile: Why Agile Teams Have Nothing To Do With Business Agility.]
We are uncovering better ways of developing
"PRODUCTS" by doing it and helping others do it.
We live the Agile mindset by uncovering better ways and helping others to do the same, so we lead by example and inspiration.
[Scrum Ambassadors. (2021). As a Scrum Ambassador.]
Sebastian Sussmann
CIO at Axon Active and
Scrum Ambassadors Licensed Trainer (SA-LT)
Signed by
Khang Do Thach Chi
Axon Active Vietnam
2018