Using Atlassian JIRA for agile marketing
Kanban board used for agile markeing in JIRA
Why marketing teams need to be agile
As mentioned in my last blog, agile methodologies are more commonly seen in software development teams where small, incremental releases are preferred to big-bang launches (waterfall).
When done right, however, agile project management can help marketing teams improve their strategic alignment, team productivity and delivery momentum.
So which tool is the best at helping marketing teams structure their new agile approach? For me, that’s Atlassian JIRA (JIRA).
Why I like JIRA?
“JIRA helps marketing teams to change their bad habits”
Put simply, because it’s purpose built for agile. As such, JIRA helps marketing teams to change their bad habits. Whereas, although Asana and Trello can be adapted to work well within an agile marketing environment, they’re less prescriptive in their workflows thereby increasing the likelihood of corners being cut.
With JIRA there’s none of that - backlogs must be created, sprint timelines must be defined, story points and tasks must be assigned and kanban boards must be used properly.
If you like pre-defined agile workflows based on best practices, JIRA is for you.
Feel the fear and do it anyway
JIRA’s popularity with engineering teams can make it very intimidating to marketing professionals. It’s highly structured workflows and terminology (what the hell’s an ‘Epic’ anyway?!) can quickly see your average marketeer’s eyes glaze over.
My advice is to feel that collective fear and do it anyway, particularly if you’re starting from a clean slate. The easiest options are rarely the best, this is true when selecting an agile project management software.
The only exception is that if your team is already using (and likes) a simpler task management tool like Trello. Whilst its selection may be the path of least resistance, do try to emulate some of the methodologies described below in the way that it’s configured.
How to set up JIRA for agile marketing
A word of warning - JIRA is a complex piece of software. If you’re starting from scratch, I’d strongly recommend that you reach out to one of your buddies in engineering to help guide you through the setup. But also remember that this is marketing not engineering - we’ll be using many of the features in JIRA but not all of them. Therefore consider the following recommendations to be ‘JIRA-lite’.
One question that will be asked early on is - do you want a single marketing project or to create projects for each of your team’s disciplines (PR, website, campaigns etc)? Either approach is fine but the former is probably simpler for a smaller, multi-skilled team. Larger marketing departments with specialist teams consisting of 3+ people can probably justify their own project boards.
For the purposes of this blog, I’ll assume you’re part of a ~10 person team, whose members wear at least more than one hat. This being the case, I suggest we start with ‘Stories’.
How to use ‘Stories’ for agile marketing
Traditionally, a ‘story’ is used in JIRA to capture the description of a software feature from an end-user’s perspective. The story describes the type of user, what they want and why. For example, “As an app user, I want to be able to do XYZ so that I can benefit from ABC”.
The sub-tasks listed within the story should describe the steps necessary to complete it.
Crucially, a story should be achievable within the time allowed for the sprint (normally two weeks).
Creating a story in JIRA
There’s really no difference when using stories for agile marketing - decide who’s going to benefit from the story, what they want and why. Assign the story to a team member and estimate an appropriate number of ‘story points’.
What are ‘story points’?
‘Story points’ enable the team to estimate the length of the story in comparison to others, instead of forcing them to determine a fixed time it will take to complete each story. Velocity is then worked out based on how many points the team can complete in each sprint.
In the past I’ve used 1 point for a small story, 3 for an average sized story and 5 for something more substantial. I’ve found that a team member can reasonably complete 10 stories points in a two week sprint.
Strategic alignment using ‘Epics’
Every story should be assigned an ‘Epic’. These JIRA objects are intended to capture a large body of work. As such, an ‘Epic’ may take several sprints to complete.
I’ve found that Epics are excellent at helping you continually refer stories back to your marketing plan’s strategic goals. If you build a story that doesn’t help you achieve one of your strategic goals you should question how important it is.
Once in place, stories can be quickly filtered by Epic whether they’re being addressed in a live sprint or sitting in your ‘backlog’.
Capturing your ideas in the ‘Backlog’
Having a place to capture potential ideas is essential to any functioning agile team. Your backlog is the barrel where ideas can ferment into purposeful tasks or fully articulated stories.
“Your backlog is the barrel where ideas can ferment into purposeful tasks or fully articulated stories. ”
When ready, assign their completion to the most appropriate member of your team and simply drag them into your next sprint.
Stand-UpS, Sprint Reviews & Planning
Typically a sprint lasts for two weeks. For particularly intense activities daily 10 minute stand-ups are advised but not necessary. At the conclusion of the sprint all team members should attend a sprint review session - the forum in which completed stories and tasks are assessed and honest feedback is given by the whole team.
[PRO TIP: Leadership should ensure that feedback is measured and constructive but otherwise let a ‘scrum master’ run the show]
Once the review is complete, end the current sprint and look to the backlog for new stories and tasks to be tackled in the forthcoming sprint. If some of the existing stories haven’t been fully delivered, they can roll over to the next sprint.
When the team is fully aligned on what needs to be done and story points are assigned, start the next sprint.
What next?
I recommend taking out a trial of JIRA to put some of the above agile processes into practice.
Some folks find JIRA a little too rigid for their tastes so check out less structured tools like Asana and Trello instead. I’ll look at these tools in upcoming blogs. Stay tuned!