We are seeing a lot of interest in Agile outside of our dev teams. For a Marketing department that handles both long-term campaigns and daily social media requests, which Agile model (Scrum, Kanban, or Lean) provides the best balance for team members?
3 answers
For Marketing teams, Kanban is usually the "gateway" model because it handles "interrupt-driven" work much better than Scrum. Marketing often deals with unplanned requests—like a sudden PR crisis or a trending social topic—that can’t wait for the next sprint. By using a Kanban board with clear swimlanes for "Campaigns" and "Operations," the team can see their capacity in real-time. However, adding a weekly "Sync" (similar to a Scrum Daily Stand-up) is vital to ensure that everyone is aligned on the creative direction and not just moving tickets.
Since Marketing relies heavily on external vendors, how does your chosen Agile model account for the delays caused by third-party approvals that the team can't control?
We tried Scrum in HR, but the "Sprints" felt too forced. Switching to a flow-based Kanban system with a focus on "Lead Time" for hiring worked much better for us.
That makes sense, Deborah; HR and Marketing are so fluid that the rigid boundaries of a Scrum Sprint often create more stress than they actually solve.
Ryan, we solve this by using "Blocked" tags and "Definition of Ready" checklists. A task doesn't even enter the active workflow until the vendor has provided all necessary assets. This prevents our internal cycle time from being artificially inflated by external dependencies. It also makes it very clear to leadership exactly where the bottlenecks are occurring, whether it's our team or the outside agencies we work with.