Agile methodology is usually considered in terms of software development. However, since coming to work for a company that practices Agile in all aspects of its business, I’m beginning to learn that it is a really good way to manage search marketing projects.
Agile isn’t new, but it’s Agile project management involves open collaboration and process adaptability throughout the lifecycle of the project. This means continuous planning, continuous testing, continuous integration, and other forms of continuous evolution of the project. Ultimately, Agile helps to minimize the overall risk and allows the project to adapt to changes more quickly.
So why Agile for SEO? The project management courses I took in college revolved around traditional “waterfall” methods, which turn out to not work well for SEO and SEM because the marketplace changes so quickly. Waterfall places heavy emphasis on requirements definition, with scope change being the #1 contributing factor to project failure. With Agile, the scope doesn’t have time to change before the first iteration is completed. At this point, the stakeholders have something real and concrete to try out, and future iterations can easily be defined and adjusted using these initial real-world examples.
The concrete ways in which Agile can be used as a framework for managing SEO and SEM projects are numerous, and each probably deserves its own post at some point, so I’ll put together a series of posts on this subject. For now I’ll list the main benefits, and work on the details in future series entries:
- Releases and fixed-length iterations involve breaking down projects into manageable increments.
- The focus on functional, tested programs means that I can get something up and running, fly it past my boss, and then tweak it as needed.
- Value-driven development means that business values such as Marketing ROI are delivered early and tracked continuously.
- “Just Enough” planning is done at the very beginning to get things rolling. High level planning is included in this process, but exactly what will be performed is not carved in stone. The timeframe and scope are typically fixed, and detail planning comes in a bit later in the process.
- Relative estimation can be done in days, hours, or even a system of relative points in order to determine how many backlog items (requirements) can be realistically completed in a given time.
- Emergent discovery involves quickly prioritizing and estimating requirements, and then refining them when needed. This saves a great deal of time when compared with the long up-front planning process of traditional waterfall project management.
- Continuous testing means that if a campaign or program isn’t working, it doesn’t take six months (and potentially thousands of dollars) to figure it out.
- Continuous improvement leaves room for tweaking the program to make sure it’s meeting goals and expectations. The project can mature and evolve over time instead of being scrapped and started over.
- Small, cross-functional teams are nothing new in search marketing. Over the past ten years I’ve been either the only SEO/SEM person, or one of two on staff. Agile methodologies work well for small groups who need to work together and interact constantly to keep things running smoothly.
