Making Agile Work for Creative Teams

Episode Transcript

Andrea: One of the biggest fears I hear when marketing teams start talking about Agile goes something like this: "If we add structure, we're gonna kill our creativity." It's like the minute we put marketers into a sprint or create a card on a Kanban board that says, "Build an ad campaign," creative work all of a sudden turns into this soulless assembly line. Our originality gets just completely flattened by the presence of a checklist, and any kind of visibility becomes an invitation for constant interference.

I mean, now, first of all, people, we work in marketing, so it's not like we inhabit this beautiful, unstructured Bohemian paradise in the first place. But putting that aside for the time being, the fact is this is just a misconception about Agile marketing. It flat out is not true. So today's guest is gonna help us put this fear to rest, because she has lived through this fear, and what she experienced completely flipped the script. Because it turns out the right kind of structure does not suffocate creativity, it protects it. So let's find out how.

Welcome to the Agile Marketing Edge, the first podcast dedicated to turning Agile theory into real-world marketing breakthroughs. I'm Andrea Fryrear, CEO of Agile Sherpas, and your guide on this climb to smarter, faster, outcome-driven marketing. Every week, we unpack the what, who, and how behind Agile marketing, from building high-velocity workflows and slashing waste to measuring what really matters and scaling success across teams. You'll hear quick-hit strategies you can deploy today, plus candid stories from marketers who have traded chaos for clarity and never looked back. Hit Follow wherever you listen, and let's carve the next switchback together.

Today, my guest is Nicole Crawley, a certified project management professional and senior marketing operations leader at Navy Federal Credit Union. For years now, she's been spearheading improvements in the way the marketing teams there work, and today we're focusing on her experiences with integrating creative work into Agile.

Okay, great. All right, so Nicole, thank you for being here. I'm excited to talk about how we bring creative teams into the Agile process without making them crazy or breaking Agile, or any of the things that we don't want to have happen. So, first and foremost, let's talk about kind of the initial integration. When you first started bringing the creative teams into those Agile ways of working, what were some of the fears or areas of resistance that showed up? And then which of those were maybe not real, maybe they were unfounded?

Nicole: Really good question. If you asked 10 different creatives on the team, you'd probably hear 10 different answers. But I think the one that I heard the most was that creative would become like an assembly line, especially as... I acted as RTE in the beginning, and I think there was a fear that the person who led project management would lead the whole marketing art like it was a project, it was assembly line, things were run like production, and that having that structure would kind of dim their creative light, kind of flatten the originality, or force people to do things by, like, checklist. And I think there was also some real anxiety about visibility. I think creatives were a little worried that breaking work into smaller pieces would invite more scrutiny, and, I mean, anyone who's worked with creatives knows, like, scrutiny is a part of the game, but no one wants more of it. And so I think they thought there would be, like, constant interferences in the process.

And what I think turned out to be completely unfounded — and it was after time, right? Like, there were a lot of skeptics — but the idea was that, you know, Agile would constrain them, but in reality, it did the opposite. It took a while, but once we started to get that flow and the chaos of, you know, traditional marketing in a really big organization, once that was removed and they saw that they had protection, they had protection from constant interruption, that creative energy actually thrived, right? It had a lot more time to breathe. And so that reality was that we protected them, and they were free from the... Now, I won't say free, 'cause you can't be 100% free, but for the most part, they were able to be more creative, and innovation kind of flowed better.

Andrea: And so you were there kind of alongside them as they were coming into the process. So did you learn anything about creative work by watching it operate inside of the Agile system?

Nicole: Yeah, I worked with a creative director for many, many years, and he loved... well, and I work with him again now, 'cause he's come to join us at Navy Federal now. But I worked with him, and he used to say all the time, and he used to annoy me, he used to be like: "We need time to marinate." And really what he was saying is, like, "Just give us space. Give us focus. Stop hitting us with deadline, deadline, deadlines." And I'm like, "Yes, there has to be a balance." And I think that our Agile framework really helped support that. It helped support time for innovation and marination, but it also provided that structure. And I think just kind of watching how our team has moved, our creatives have moved into the Agile ways of working, I think I've been a little bit happily surprised that really all they needed was focus time, some psychological safety, and that protection. And so I think that's been a great thing to see.

Andrea: That's cool. And so, you know, talking about that need to marinate and that need for space, I think that some of us — I'm a writer, and I do understand that need for space — but I think a lot of people assume that creativity needs totally unstructured freedom and that, you know, creatives just need to, like, go skip through the tulips and just, like, leave us alone completely forever in order to thrive. But there is a balance. You know, there does need to be some kind of structure. And so I'm wondering, in your experience, how have things like backlogs or WIP limits or maybe cadences like PI planning or sprints or things like that, how do you see those maybe protecting or improving the ability for creatives to do their best work?

Nicole: And I think we still struggle with WIP limits. You mentioned WIP limits. I think we struggle with WIP limits, because we have a lot — I think we all do, right?

Andrea: Yes.

Nicole: Like, we will never not. Just in, like, in regular life and, yeah, in the marketing space. But I do think backlogs kind of created this single source of truth, maybe a visibility that creatives in particular didn't have before. It wasn't necessarily their responsibility to understand kind of the intake of the work and the prioritization around it and the strategy around it. So I think backlogs kind of create this single source of truth, and then those cadences you mentioned, so all of our Agile ceremonies, our refinement sessions, our planning sessions, PI planning, those cadences kind of normalized for everyone when we were gonna talk about the work, how we talked about the work, and then creatives kind of became like the strategic partner, too, right? They became a part of the conversation, whereas maybe before, they didn't necessarily get into the work until it was kind of like, "Here it is. Here's what you need to now go do," and they were trying to, like, dig through briefs and really understand the work, but now they're a part of the conversation. So I think that structure has really, really supported their creative process. And yeah, definitely think the work has improved because of it.

Andrea: Yeah. So they have time to, like, talk about the work before they go and try to do the work, which really helps the execution go more smoothly, 'cause all the information's out there, and you get less of that, like, back-and-forth stuff.

Nicole: For sure. It's definitely not perfect, you know? Like, intakes — I don't think we can curse on your podcast today, but when you have a bad intake, usually you have bad output, right? But I think creatives being a part of the process, now they understand the questions to ask so that the work is then refined upfront. When they go to sit down, they have all the information that they need or as much as they think that they need, and they're able to execute it appropriately. I think prior, you know, they'd have to ask a lot of questions, dig around for information, call this one, call that one, ping this one, ping that one, and now it's a lot more clean.

Andrea: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So then, you know, as this has been going on over time, have you seen roles and expectations evolving for creatives within Agile? You know, are they feeling... You mentioned them being more like strategic partners, and you also mentioned some maybe, like, hesitation around too much feedback or too much, like, looking over the shoulder. Have you seen that evolve over time?

Nicole: Yeah, definitely the strategic partnership of our creatives, I think, is super important. And I think folks now look for it ahead of time, right? There was a time where, until something was created, there was really not a lot of input from our creatives, right? The input came once it was created, and then there were, you know, review sessions, and it was the back and forth at that time. But the creative team is really now seen as very strategic partners. They are invited into the conversation and required, really, to have a take. And I think that has really shifted what the work looks like, and how the work performs. The intakes that come in, you know, lots of conversation around it, and not just with the creatives, right? It's, like, the whole entire team, everyone is talking about it, and that feedback that we get is just much more intentional now. We would have a lot of feedback sessions, but it was all kind of behind a curtain, done in the system only. We work in Workfront, so our proofing tool kind of was the place for feedback, and then you had to interpret the feedback. And that interpretation takes time, and it slows cycle time.

And so that feedback now happens at very intentional times during refinements, during our review cycles, which we've truncated, and then also during retrospectives. Leaders are invited into those conversations, and then we understand from a tiering perspective, like, what that really high, high, high-impact new work — that's where we really look for that leadership approval. But for the most part, the creatives have now been like, they have a seat at the table. They're sitting alongside... They feel like they are alongside the team versus the one sitting there just kind of waiting for, like, the shoe to drop, where someone critiques them in a way that is not supportive. And so I think that clarity really helped increase their trust and really increase their self-esteem, right? They're like: "Oh, no, they need me there. I need to be there to support the initiative." So I think that's been a huge win for us.

Andrea: Yeah, for sure. And then we haven't talked about, like, just how big your overall team is at Navy Federal, 'cause you have a big Agile marketing implementation, like, over 200 people total?

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah, it was a little over 200 when we started. That was four years ago. We're almost at the 300 mark now. I'm not planning on making it much bigger. We keep saying, "No more new value streams. We can't do it anymore." But yeah, I think it's a big team, big team.

Andrea: Right. And so, you know, I think that's important to emphasize because at that level, it's really easy to have this sense of lots of moving parts, and there's always something going on, and there can really be this sense of chaos that can feel counter to a sense of creativity and that need for calm and measured, "Okay, I have the space to give a project or an activity the time and attention that it needs." And so, as things have grown over time, are there any particular Agile practices or ceremonies or anything, tools maybe even, that you feel like have made a really big difference in maintaining that breathing room or that protection for creatives as things have continued to scale and grow?

Nicole: Yeah. You know, what I love most about our team is their resiliency. And they have been so paramount in our transformation being successful. I will not say there were not tears, kicking, screaming.

Andrea: Good.

Nicole: There was certainly a lot of that. But with that came, I think, a level for my team, a level of empathy that we maybe didn't have before. And I think there were a few things, like our retrospectives after PI planning have really been the crux of where we make a lot of decisions, and we really foster that continuous improvement. So much so that the teams, I mean, their voices are heard during retrospectives, and they know that we are going to hear them and really take that feedback to heart and move it forward. Now, the retrospectives are supposed to only be around PI planning, but it ended up being around the ways of working in general. So what it ended up teaching us is that we had a lot of power in being able to continuously improve and move things forward that would help the teams to work in the best ways possible. So I think our ceremony that was most impactful, certainly PI planning, it was also the hardest one to stand up because of just the volume of our team and then the volume of work that comes through the team.

But I think two things came out of a PI planning retrospective, and it was like an aha for me at some point, and I was like: "You've been doing this for, like, 20-something years. Why didn't you think of this sooner?" Was studio team. So we stood up a value stream, and we call it the studio team, and essentially, that is pure production team. And they are a huge support to what I call our core value streams. And this team has a very, very clear intake and prioritization process. It's staffed with creatives that are more execution-driven, and they take on the type of work that I like to call disruptors. It's that work that's, like, urgent, it's constant, it's stuff that has to happen, has to get done. Things like, in our environment, financial services, rate changes, where we've got to now go and change everything on the website, and it wasn't planned necessarily. And so who's gonna take on that work? So instead of disrupting the core teams, that work is kind of direct to studio team. Had no idea how impactful it would be, but studio team has been kind of like the heroes. And yeah, they've been pretty amazing.

And then I think maybe seeing the work in progress. So I think at a high level, our senior leaders knew how much work was coming through the teams, but I don't think they could visualize it until we showed it to them. And so visible work in progress, the leaders now understood how much work was already in motion, and it started to change the conversations from, "Just squeeze it in, get it in, get it in," to, "Okay, what do you need our help to — how can we help you deprioritize or descope?" And that's been really, really, really helpful to give our creatives that focus, that breathing room, and they felt very, very supported.

Andrea: Yeah, let's talk about your studio team a little bit more, 'cause I've seen that kind of thing done in other environments. And one thing that I have heard leaders bring up when we talk to them about these kinds of teams is they get concerned that that type of work feels churn and burn, right? It's just kind of like, it's not that creative, right? We're just gonna, like, change the price on the web page over and over again. And will people get bored of it? Like, it doesn't feel as cool or interesting. But maybe that's not the only kind of work that's going through your studio team, and maybe you have other kind of cooler things that they get to do. Like, is that something that came up? Is that something you've had to address? How does that work for you?

Nicole: For sure. So our leaders weren't necessarily concerned with it, but the team of creatives that got put into the studio team, I think they were a little concerned about it, that they would get bored. But when I tell you, there is no boredom in the studio team. We have a varied type of work, and we have iterated over time, and we've now brought into studio team what we call creative light. And creative light is work that just is not new concepts, essentially. So the people that are in that team, they are not concepting, and that's just because of the speed by which the work needs to go through. But they are still working with the designers within the core value streams that have concepted the work. So they're still a part of conversation as necessary, so they're still getting their creative juices flowing. It's just creative light. They just don't need to concept. So if there are some light creative changes that need to happen, those folks will do it. They are just so execution-minded. They are the checkbox. They wanna, like, move through their list as quickly as possible. It's important to identify those people, I think, that exist in almost every creative team, at least that I've ever worked in. And I've worked with many. They exist, and they are there, and they do feel a sense of... And I think this is a common thing that I hear from them. They feel a sense of accomplishment when they are moving through their lists, they're getting things done, they're supporting the other teams, and they're sought out as folks that can help push initiatives forward. So I think that helped to alleviate, like, the boredom. No one is bored in that team. If anything, they're like: "Wait! Hold on, we can't take on any more." And we do empower them from that perspective as well. We have to manage their capacity, too, and so we do do that quite well. It's just been... I think it's just been the best add to our art.

Andrea: Yeah, and as you said, I think that other teams do see them as essential and kind of the heroes who create capacity in the other art and in the other teams. So they are essential.

Nicole: They are essential. Yeah. Absolutely. So much so that we've invested a lot into that team and to help grow that team. And that was the aha for me. I was like, "I had huge production teams in my old worlds. Like, why didn't I think of that? Duh." It was kind of like, we should have done this a long time ago, and everyone was like: "We really should have done this a long time ago." So it was great.

Andrea: Yeah. Yeah, and not every Agile team has to be identical, right?

Nicole: Right.

Andrea: Or has to work exactly the same way. I think especially as we're talking about how to integrate creative into Agile marketing, like, that's an important takeaway here is, not every single one has to look exactly the same. It's okay to get creative, and it's okay to mix and match here and make it work.

Nicole: For sure. Yeah, I think back to, like, my old places of employment, this probably wouldn't have worked in any other place, the way that it works for us, so I agree. Like, it's not one size fits all at all.

Andrea: Yeah. Are there any other misconceptions that you think people might have about how creative and Agile can or should work together, that you think we need to maybe just shoot down right now?

Nicole: Hmm, let's see, what else? So I'll say this, you might smack my hand for this, but I don't necessarily think that Agile allowed us speed to market. That term, it's annoying to me. So, like, speed to market, I mean, I think eventually you might get there, you might make wins, but, you know, you might decrease your cycle time a bit here and there, that just kind of takes the slack out of your system. But I think what it did for us was it empowered folks to be more innovative, and it just kind of gave them time. And I think our leaders essentially were like, "No, it's supposed to be speed to market, speed to market." But I think that's maybe a misunderstanding, and I think that leaders do understand that Agile is supposed to promote essentially innovation and empowerment in theory. But what often gets missed is how much psychological safety empowers the teams to move work forward, to feel really safe and good about presenting their ideas, and actually implementing ideas without getting their hand slapped. I think leaders don't always get that they play a huge role in that psychological safety, that when our creative teams have, like, really clear priorities and the constraints are out there for everyone to hear and understand, and then we apply ownership to how to resolve those blockers and things like that, it removes a lot of fear from the execution teams, our creatives.

And then if our leaders — and ours do a really good job, the ones that are, like, in the detail, in the weeds with us — they do a really good job about making that empowerment visible, but not just in their words, but in how they respond to the ideas, respond to the risks, respond to — I don't want to call them failures because we don't have very many of them — but creatives feel much safer, and the best work shows up that way. So I think that speed to market, I wish we could do away with that term, quite honestly.

Andrea: You know, I think that's super fair, and we've talked on this show multiple times about identifying the real bottleneck in people's systems and going there first, and it sounds like for you all, like, speed was not your bottleneck, right? That was not the biggest problem for you. And, excuse me, so, you know, when we start working with clients, we always say, like, "Run an assessment, identify your biggest pain points, and, like, let's start there first." And so if speed and cycle time is not the biggest problem, let's not worry about it. Let's worry about psychological safety, or let's worry about innovation. Let's worry about team composition and organizational design. Let's go where the biggest problem is and tackle that first, 'cause it's not always speed. Sometimes it's quality or there's other issues. I think it's totally fair, because for some people, they're already moving as fast as they can go, and there's no point in trying to make them move faster. You're just gonna break people, so—

Nicole: Yeah. Absolutely. We did have a lot of consultants. We have consultancies with, like, Gartner and others, A&A, and when I talk to them about our cycle, they're like, "I don't know, cycle times, I don't think that's your problem. Like, you guys are pretty efficient in that way." But certainly, I think our leaders maybe felt like empowerment of the team. Like, they wanted folks to understand that they were being empowered to make decisions. What I think our teams didn't understand is that they had the psychological safety to make empowered decisions. They didn't necessarily feel it in the day-to-day. And I think that our Agile implementation did bring to light that, yes, there are challenges in that, and our leadership had to start to evolve that, and our teams had to start to, like, loosen up and understand, like, we're all one team, we're here for each other. And so it's been really cool to see. Not that there's not still challenges, but certainly, I think we are far ways away from where we were.

Andrea: Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah. And that takes time. You know, it's a long process, but a worthwhile one.

Nicole: For sure. Definitely agree. Agree.

Andrea: Yeah. Okay, so as our final question then for our time together, for the people who... You know, you've been on this journey for a while, several years you're in. So for folks who are maybe just getting ready to get started and specifically thinking about how they might incorporate their creatives into their Agile marketing processes, what's one thing you might point them toward that they could do initially? And maybe said another way, is there a mistake that you have seen people make that you would steer them away from when they're trying to bring creatives into the process?

Nicole: Yeah. I think the best thing that we did was, and I would encourage everyone to do it, is to not remove creative reality from your Agile transformation, because you will fail. I will say that right out front. You will fail because they are such a huge part of your team, and execution, and initiatives getting out the door and to your consumer or your members. And so if you don't really listen to them and take what they're saying, like, treat them as strategic partners in your transformation, if you don't do that, you will fail. And I think that's true of every function, but really true of creatives because their function is so — it's very different, right? It's different from, like, writing a brief, but it's very paramount to success.

And so I think the best thing that we did was, in our team that stood up Agile within our department, we called ourselves the Agile Coalition, the Agile Guiding Coalition, or AGC, as we like to use a lot of acronyms in Navy Federal. AGC, and that team included myself, as heading up, like, project management, kind of the system of... We used the SAFe methodology. We included the head of creative on the AGC, we included someone from product strategy, and we included an outside consultant. And we included someone who could kind of act at that portfolio leadership level. And we listened very clearly to all of the fear that was coming from the teams, and we addressed them ahead of time as much as we possibly could in order to stand us up. And like I said, you will iterate, continuous improvement will be there. You can always change things, but if your creative team is not involved in that process up front, I know for sure that you will fail. You will fail.

Andrea: Yeah. Right. And, "Don't worry, it's gonna be okay," is not how you address the fear. Like, you really have to—

Nicole: Correct. Yeah. Correct, yes. As many things as you can... Now, you're not gonna make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time, I will also say that. But you do your best to mitigate the risk that you have in, kind of — losing my word — but in making that team feel outside of. You want them to understand the what's-in-it-for-them, and that's what we tried to make really clear, was that they were going to win in this. And I think eventually they felt it, so it's been great.

Andrea: Fantastic. So we will share in the show notes — we have lots of great blog posts on the Agile Sherpas site about boards that you can use for shared services, about how to incorporate creatives. So there's lots of great content out there about how to do this properly. To Nicole's point, you know, you have to tread carefully, acknowledge the unique position that your creatives are gonna be in, 'cause they are essential to getting this right. And you wanna bring them along carefully and well. And of course, Agile Sherpas is always here if you would like a partner in rolling this out properly. So thank you, Nicole, for being here. We really appreciate your time and your insights, so thank you.

Nicole: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Andrea: And until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Fryrear. Remember, the struggle is real, but so is Agile marketing.