{"id":10782,"date":"2022-09-10T16:36:14","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T16:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/growthmethod.com\/?p=10782"},"modified":"2024-04-25T19:04:59","modified_gmt":"2024-04-25T19:04:59","slug":"marketing-project-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/growthmethod.com\/marketing-project-management\/","title":{"rendered":"Why marketing project management is more important than your tech stack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In this article we look at the process of marketing project management, the history (and problems) of waterfall project management, and why agile marketing project management and experimentation is the future for marketing growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The People, Processes, and Technology (PPT) framework is widely used around the world to describe the 3 key elements of a successful company or team. Originating from the world of change management, and adapted from Harold Leavitt\u2019s 1964 paper Applied Organisation Change in Industry<\/em>, it has been adopted as a business practise “near-mantra” that is now widely used around the world in information technology, cybersecurity and management consulting. It has become the<\/em> classic framework to assess and improve team and organisational performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The people, process, technology framework is often referred to as the Golden Triangle and visualised as an equilateral triangle to emphasise the balance between each element to create a strong foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n It is also referred to as the Three-Legged Stool, imagining that if one leg is bigger or smaller it will make the chair unstable and cause it to wobble.<\/p>\n\n\n The back-to-basics approach emphasises how business success often comes from maintaining a balance between people, process and technology. At the same time, the equation is complex won’t ever remain static, a change in one element requires the other two to respond in order to maintain balance. How people, process and technology interact is the key to improving outcomes and driving efficiencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who is involved?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ask a marketing leader about the people in their team, they’ll likely tell you how people are the most critical element of marketing team success. They’ll describe decisions behind team structure, and the specific details of hiring, and how people costs are often the largely item of marketing budget. Leaders will spend time on ensuring personal development, training, events, certifications and more. Without people, nothing gets done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What they work with?<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a marketing leader about their tech stack, and they’ll be able to go into details about how HubSpot compares with Salesforce as well as their complete tech stack, from the marketing data warehouse to programmatic advertising, retargeting and ABM. They’ll talk about new technology they’re exploring – from chatbots and process automation to artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How does work gets done?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Processes are repeatable actions carried out by people to create predictability and efficiency. Progress is obstructed without process. Ask most marketing leaders about the steps or actions taken to deliver on their goals, and there is a lot less insight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you were to ask most marketing leaders what makes a great team, most would probably say people, some may say technology. Very few would talk about process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Speak to some of the world’s best growth leaders however, and you’ll discover they all talk about process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growth has nothing to do with tactics, and everything to do with process. Growth is not about the terminology or the tactics, it\u2019s about a change in our mentality, process, and team.<\/p>Brian Balfour, VP of Growth @ Hubspot Growth is about implementing a rigorous, customer insight and data-driven process with sustained effort to remove friction<\/p>Brian Rothenberg, VP of Growth at Eventbrite The growth process is designed to be a positive feedback loop, to find small wins and optimizations across the business and then compound those over time as fast as possible.<\/p>Morgan Brown, VP Growth @ Shopify, ex Facebook In knowledge work our tools are the processes we use to approach and solve different types of problems<\/p>Andrew Chen, VC @ a16z, ex Growth @ Uber You can have highly competent people and state-of-the-art tech, but fail to grow and achieve KPIs because of inefficient processes. Process is the hardest of the 3 disciplines to get right, and its impact is often underrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The inception of waterfall project management and task-based systems dates back to Frederick Winslow Taylor\u2019s<\/a> work in the early 1900s. His theory, known as Scientific Management<\/a> (or Taylorism), centred around the idea that dividing work into standardised discrete tasks was the key to increasing process and project efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taylor\u2019s theories evolved during the era mass production and the 2nd industrial revolution \u2013 car manufacturing, steel production and tobacco \u2013 all processes that are repeated thousands of times, where the problem is well-defined and the solution is clearly understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Waterfall methodology argues the best thing to do with projects such as these is to decompose the project into a series of individual tasks, assign each task to a functional specialist and work through a series of steps towards the end deliverable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Waterfall project delivery follows a series of steps, executed in a linear fashion one after the other. The steps are typically Planning, Design, Implementation, Testing and Deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a marketing campaign this may look like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n To this day, Taylor\u2019s ideas still form the bedrock of the modern capitalist economy and are very much alive in global workplace culture. His thinking permeates virtually all management thinking to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taylor is responsible for the way most people see work, teams, and leadership today. At the same time his theories stand in the way of many corporate innovation and transformation efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem with task-based systems is that they work best for predictable, frequently recurring projects. In other words, waterfall planning only really works where there is certainty around the problem and the solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately today\u2019s marketers and marketing teams, and increasingly other business functions as well, operate under conditions of extreme uncertainty and constant change. Customers and audiences are changing, experiences and expectations are changing, acquisition channels are changing, company strategy and messaging is changing. In this kind of environment your marketing plan very quickly becomes less of a \u201cplan\u201d and more a case of \u201cbuild it and see what happens\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most common outcome when using waterfall project planning in conditions of uncertainty is the successful execution of a bad plan. Eric Ries<\/a>, renowned author and coach of lean methodology, refers to this as \u201cachieving failure\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In marketing this typically takes the form of a campaign that is on time, on budget and beautifully executed. All campaign planning and tasks are completed perfectly. Regular updates show everything to be on-track, and yet the end result is no increase in lead generation or revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marketers need to reduce the risk of spending time and money on content that people don\u2019t read, and on campaigns people don\u2019t engage with. If we create something nobody wants, does it matter if we do it on time and on budget?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Big bang equals big risk. You build the thing until it\u2019s 100% done and deliver it to the user at the very end.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPeople<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Technology<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Process<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Marketing project management and the technology paradox<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Quote source<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nHow waterfall marketing project management became the norm<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Phase<\/th> Work required<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Planning<\/td> Discuss campaign theme and objectives at a high-level<\/td><\/tr> Design<\/td> Understand individual assets required (content, graphics, landing page & ad creation, tools, nurture sequences, analytics etc)<\/td><\/tr> Implementation<\/td> Creation of the above assets, including design and development work<\/td><\/tr> Testing<\/td> Ensure everything works as planned, test user journey, device types, translations etc<\/td><\/tr> Launch<\/td> Push live and launch to prospects and customers<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n The problem with waterfall marketing project management<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Agile marketing project management & experimentation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n