Many companies want to make their sales agile. Some of them have tried to set up agile sales organizations, but such top-down approaches and big-bang rollouts seldom seem to work. This book shows how the elements of the leading agile framework “Scrum” should be applied to install agility in the salesforce, improve sales performance, and resolve typical performance issues in sales organizations. It contains concrete guidelines, real-world examples, and useful tools to create the necessary change step by step and built to last.
Scrum is an agile framework for completing complex projects. This book gives examples, tools, and tricks to do Scrum well. For each trick it is explained why it helps. The practices themselves may be worth trying, but by understanding why it works the readers will be able to come up with their own ideas that work better in their organization and situation. All the practical examples in this book have helped someone, some where to become a part of a better Scrum team. Scrum’s motto is: “Inspect and Adapt”; change small things one at a time and see what works. Scrum is not done by project leaders or managers, but really by the teams—to succeed in an organization, the teams must do Scrum well. If the teams do Scrum well, the whole organization will benefit from it. Scrum helps a team self-organize, which fits in well with developers, who usually don’t like to be micromanaged. At the same time, Scrum can scale: Self-organized teams work together well, and one manager doesn’t have to manage all the people. The lessons from this book help Scrum teams develop into autonomous, proud, and independent teams. Often teams fail to become powerful enough to change the organization, so they cannot perform to their full potential. A good team can lead the stakeholders into trusting them. They will then make plans based on the team’s release planning instead of making roadmaps out of thin air, and thus make the organization much more predictable.
The rules and practices for Scrum—a simple process for managing complex projects—are few, straightforward, and easy to learn. But Scrum’s simplicity itself—its lack of prescription—can be disarming, and new practitioners often find themselves reverting to old project management habits and tools and yielding lesser results. In this illuminating series of case studies, Scrum co-creator and evangelist Ken Schwaber identifies the real-world lessons—the successes and failures—culled from his years of experience coaching companies in agile project management. Through them, you’ll understand how to use Scrum to solve complex problems and drive better results—delivering more valuable software faster. Gain the foundation in Scrum theory—and practice—you need to: Rein in even the most complex, unwieldy projects Effectively manage unknown or changing product requirements Simplify the chain of command with self-managing development teams Receive clearer specifications—and feedback—from customers Greatly reduce project planning time and required tools Build—and release—products in 30-day cycles so clients get deliverables earlier Avoid missteps by regularly inspecting, reporting on, and fine-tuning projects Support multiple teams working on a large-scale project from many geographic locations Maximize return on investment!
Escape “Zombie Scrum” and Get Real Value from Agile! “Professional Scrum and Zombie Scrum are mortal enemies in eternal combat. If you relax your guard, Zombie Scrum comes back. This guide helps you stay on your guard, providing very practical tips for identifying when you have become a Zombie and how to stop this from happening. A must-have for any Zombie Scrum hunter.” --Dave West, CEO, Scrum.org “Barry, Christiaan, and Johannes have done a magnificent job of accumulating successful experiences and sharing their inspiring stories in this very practical book. They don't shy away from telling it like it is, which is why their proposals are always as useful as they are grounded in reality.” --Henri Lipmanowicz, cofounder, Liberating Structures Millions of professionals use Scrum. It is the #1 approach to agile software development in the world. Even so, by some estimates, over 70% of Scrum adoptions fall flat. Developers find themselves using “Zombie Scrum” processes that look like Scrum, but are slow, lifeless, and joyless. Scrum is just not working for them. Zombie Scrum Survival Guide reveals why Scrum runs aground and shows how to supercharge your Scrum outcomes, while having a lot more fun along the way. Humorous, visual, and extremely relatable, it offers practical approaches, exercises, and tools for escaping Zombie Scrum. Even if you are surrounded by skeptics, this book will be the antidote to help you build more of what users need, ship faster, improve more continuously, interact more successfully in any team, and feel a whole lot better about what you are doing. Suddenly, one day soon, you will remember: that is why we adopted Scrum in the first place! Learn how Zombie Scrum infects you, why it spreads, and how to inoculate yourself Get closer to your stakeholders, and wake up to their understanding of value Discover why Zombie teams can't learn, and what to do about it Clear away the specific obstacles to real continuous improvement Make self-managed teams real so people can behave like humans, not Zombies Zombie Scrum Survival Guide is for Scrum Masters, Scrum practitioners, Agile coaches and leaders, and everyone who wants to transform the promises of Scrum into reality. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.
Use scrum in all aspects of life Scrum is an agile project management framework that allows for flexibility and collaboration to be a part of your workflow. Primarily used by software developers, scrum can be used across many job functions and industries. Scrum can also be used in your personal life to help you plan for retirement, a trip, or even a wedding or other big event. Scrum provides a small set of rules that create just enough structure for teams to be able to focus their innovation on solving what might otherwise be an insurmountable challenge. Scrum For Dummies shows you how to assemble a scrum taskforce and use it to implement this popular Agile methodology to make projects in your professional and personal life run more smoothly—from start to finish. Discover what scrum offers project and product teams Integrate scrum into your agile project management strategy Plan your retirement or a family reunion using scrum Prioritize for releases with sprints No matter your career path or job title, the principles of scrum are designed to make your life easier. Why not give it a try?
"The Agile philosophy has grown and achieved success initially through the Technology Design and Development teams of some of the world's largest organizations including Google, Netflix, and Microsoft. Recently, it has been adopted by the marketing departments of these organizations and others and new techniques are evolving for defining, engaging and providing customers amazing unique experiences. Sales teams are becoming disrupted by technology and the differentiated experiences marketing teams using Agile techniques are building for their customers online. Sales organizations have been looking for a way to avoid disruption and get back into the game with value. Agile is now starting to be adopted by sales teams, enabling these teams to revolutionize the way they engage customers with value and delighting experiences which result in greater value for the customer and themselves. This book outlines how Agile can help sales teams develop a culture of innovation focused on their customers. The book takes the reader through the customer buying journey (Agile technique) outlining tips and tricks that have come from Agile deployments within sales functions to help them get started. The key benefit for the reader is the introduction of a proven philosophy and techniques that will help them avoid disruption, elevate themselves from the commodity trap and achieve success again. The book provides the reader insights into how to achieve sustainable change using real life case examples. The reader will also gain enjoyment and delight through the stories told and case examples provided"--
This is today's definitive guide to making Scrum work at all levels of the enterprise, both in software development and in any other knowledge-intensive business process. Legendary agile pioneer Mike Beedle draws on his experience helping thousands of teams and individuals succeed with Scrum in projects of all types, from single-team assignments to those cutting across complex processes or the entire organization. Beedle begins with a uniquely clear and practical explanation of Scrum: its roles, benefits, interactions, and how it reflects modern insights into complexity science. You'll master these crucial essentials with the help of clear organizational and process diagrams, as well as exceptionally relevant case studies in software development and beyond. Building on this understanding, Beedle introduces proven enterprise-level Scrum processes for introducing, growing, and managing operations -- including Scrum's role in the Project Management Office (PMO) and in support of executive activities. He concludes with detailed case studies from multiple domains where Enterprise Scrum has delivered superior results. Throughout, Beedle helps you understand the paradigm shift required to succeed with Scrum in any knowledge-intensive business process -- and how to gain Scrum's proven benefits of productivity, transparency, and performance.
The leading authority on agile marketing shows how to build marketing operations that can pivot freely and yet remain committed to priorities. As a marketer, are you tired of chasing marketing fads and algorithm rumors that seem to change every couple of months? This guide to building the perfect marketing department will help you achieve the latest and greatest without having to rebuild your operations from scratch every time the wind shifts. Agile strategies have been the accepted modus operandi for software development for two decades, and marketing is poised to follow in its footsteps. As the audiences we market to become ever more digital, agile frameworks are emerging as the best and only way to manage marketing. This book is a signpost showing the way toward the agile future of marketing operations, explaining how every role, from social media intern up to chief marketing officer, can work in unison, responding to the market's demanding challenges without losing focus on the big picture. You will learn what it takes for marketing agility to thrive—customer focus, transparency, continuous improvement, adaptability, trust, bias for action, and courage—along with the antipatterns that can drag you down. Most important, you will learn how to implement the systems, strategies, and practices that will truly transform your marketing operations.
Nothing can take your business to the next level like great search engine optimization (SEO). Unfortunately, it's not always easy to know what will successfully drive traffic, leads, and sales. If you want to stand out from your competition, your SEO needs a distinctive blend of creativity and logic. Maybe you're a marketing manager or executive who is responsible for SEO growth but do not fully understand how it works. Or maybe you are a seasoned SEO pro looking to optimize further. Either way, this book is your behind-the-scenes guide to online visibility. When it comes to SEO, success often depends not on what you do but on how you do it. That is why Product-Led SEO digs deep into the logic and theory of SEO instead of offering step-by-step guidelines and techniques. You will learn to develop your own best practices and see where most SEO strategies go astray. If your main goal is driving traffic, you are leaving sales on the table.
Being an agile seller virtually guarantees a prosperous career. When salespeople are promoted, switch jobs, or face new business conditions, they need to learn lots of new information and skills quickly. It's a daunting task, compounded by the fact that they're under intense pressure to deliver immediate results. What Jill Konrath calls agile selling is the ability to quickly learn all this new info and then leverage it for maximum impact. Having an agile mindset, one that keeps you going through challenging times, is the crucial starting point. You also need a rapid-learning plan that helps you establish situational credibility with your targeted or existing customers in just thirty days. In Agile Selling, you'll discover numerous strategies to help you become an overnight sales expert, slashing your path to proficiency. Jill Konrath's fresh sales strategies, provocative insights, and practical advice help sellers win business with today's crazy-busy prospects.
