Driving agency success with pragmatic agile approaches

As an accomplished Agile coach, agency business owner, strategist and developer, I have spent over two decades at the intersection of technology, business, humans, and creative problem-solving. My journey began in the trenches of software development, where I honed my technical skills and developed a passion for building elegant, user-centric solutions. This technical foundation has been crucial in understanding the complexities of product development and delivery.

In founding and leading a digital agency, I navigated the challenges of scaling a service-oriented business, mastering the art of client relations delivering high-quality digital products and transitioning projects to value focused support agreements. This experience taught me the nuances of managing client expectations and the importance of transparent, effective communication in building long-lasting partnerships.

As an agile coach, I’ve guided teams and organisations in adopting agile methodologies, focusing on continuous improvement, flexibility, and delivering value quickly. My approach emphasises collaboration, adaptability, and empowering teams to make decisions that lead to better project outcomes.

In my role as a strategist, I focused on business processes and technological innovation. I help client-facing agencies refine their sales approaches and product delivery methods, ensuring they align with market needs and client expectations. My strategy work is informed by hands-on experience in software development, commercial approaches and product delivery in client-facing agencies.

With a client-centric mindset, I support agencies in crafting compelling value propositions, streamlining operations, and fostering a culture of excellence and innovation. My goal is to help agencies not just survive but thrive in the ever-evolving digital landscape by becoming more resilient, agile, and client-focused.

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Less-Aligned Stakeholders: How to Carve Out Success

black and white street sign

Once your client induction process is complete, you’ll need to make a decision on whether their next project has a key stakeholder that’s going to be high-impact. With those two key stages in the bank, it’s time to evalute the best way to move forward.

The options below are not intended to be a definitive list. Indeed I can imagine a rewrite of this article or addition of other options in the future. What you will be able to take from reading these thoughts however is the number of ways you could move forward (or not) with a client who isn’t ready to—or won’t—consider your purely Agile delivery approach.

Right, let’s dive into some less-Agile options!

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High-Impact Agile Stakeholders: Important Traits to Look For

person holding Coca-Cola bottle

Most of us are lucky enough to have worked with amazing clients during our agency careers. Those clients where your key stakeholder doesn’t just pass you a project and stand back. They sell you on it, buy into it, stay by your side for it and celebrate the success with you when it’s done.

But what exactly is it about those people that makes them different from the average stakeholder? How can we evaluate a client early to consider just what their team will bring to a project? Can we build them up to be more aligned before our project gets started?

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Semi-retirement done. Reboot complete.

Pause Breathe Resume

At the beginning of October last year I wrong a blog post called ‘Retirement Diary – Week One‘. As you can probably infer from the title alone my intention was for it to be the first in a series. I was planning to document what taking a step back from work looked and felt like for me. I hoped it would both allow me to return and review the experience at a later date, but also that there might be some insights I could share which would be helpful for others.

It quickly became clear however that I wasn’t actually done with work, or the impact working too much in 2022 and 2023 had on me.

Continue reading “Semi-retirement done. Reboot complete.”

Retirement Diary – Week One

man standing on top of mountain

Taking three months off was never going to be as simple as closing my laptop on a Friday and walking off into the sunset. I’ve been sharing that as the dream when I tell the story, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen that way. As I’ve been saying to the teams I work with for years, offboarding is even more important than onboarding and needs more time than is every available. I’m only following my own advice, and in my situation I’m able to ensure nobody is left in a difficult situation.

Where the role I’ve played in an organisation has been for a long time and the work was complex, it takes more than a few weeks to check it’s all documented, handover responsibilities and know it’s all in safe hands. Even more important than that, if the relationship is strong you feel a need to ensure the humans are able to take on the tasks you used to be involved in.

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Client expectations of the inspect and adapt process