Why scrum is my spirit animal

It was my first week at a new job and I found myself crouched in a closet-sized conference room with a bunch of developers. They were having a heated debate about a pesky little Post-It that was not moving from the "In Progress" to the "Complete" column on the whiteboard. I couldn’t really understand what the task they were arguing about (developers tend to speak in code you know.. haha) but the system they were using to communicate and prioritize their work….THAT I got. It was Scrum.

Scrum (also known as Agile) is project management framework that helps teams work better together.

Us folks on the 'business' side of tech can get so stuck in slack messages, email chains, decks and pivot tables that projects quickly go from brilliant idea to convoluted mess. Devs rarely have these issues and Scrum has a lot to do with hit. Since the morning I experienced my first 'stand-up' I've applied Scrum/Agile principles to my work as a marketer and it’s helped me immensely, especially when managing large, complicated projects.

Here are 4 key things developers have taught me about project management.

Break it down

If you ask me to build a house I won't know where to start, but if you ask me to put one brick on top of another - that I can do! Large projects are daunting. Breaking them into smaller chucks.

In Scrum, projects are broken down into tasks and visualized in a scrum or task board.

A scrum board is a visual representation of the work that needs to be done.

A ‘traditional’ scrum board has columns for tasks that are Not Started, those a In Progress, and Done. As tasks are completed, you can move them from one column to the other.

My task board lives in Asana, but you can also build one in Google Sheets or even have a physical one if you work in-person. Whatever is easiest for you! Having a scrum board allows me and my team to track the status of various tasks and also celebrate small wins when tasks are completed!

Have a backlog and a cutline

I will always have competing priorities. Listing those out in order of impact allows me to focus on the ones that really matter -  the rest can go below the cutline. This purgatory of projects is called the 'backlog' and it's become one of my favorite words in the English language. Fun fact: I also keep a backlog for personal projects- this article was on it and moved above the cutline on Monday!

Launch an MVP

MVP stands for 'minimal viable product'. Basically: don't wait for something to be perfect to launch it. Get it out there, collect feedback and iterate. Whenever I have a big idea my first step is to try it in a small scale. This helps me understand performance and tweak the concept before throwing precious resources at it.

Have 'release' dates

Most tech companies run on a strict code release schedule. This is super annoying when you need something changed quickly, but it keeps teams accountable and provides clear goals. Doing the same for marketing projects even when there are no real looming deadlines requires some discipline, but it's invaluable to keep everyone on the same page and on-track.

While Agile techniques have slowly trickled into the business world, they are far from being widely implemented. This is probably because doing all this stuff takes a lot of time. But trust me, it's worth it.

Let scrum be your spirit animal and you'll see a boost in productivity and collaboration.