Making Agile work at Digital Agencies w/ Jack Skeels

TLDR

Jack Skeels is the CEO and Founder of AgencyAgile. There are many organizations devoted to helping companies transform to agile, but AgencyAgile is the only one that is solely focused on helping Digital Agencies adopt Agile. In this interview Jack shares his thoughts on Agile and what makes it succeed or fail in a Digital Agency context.

SHOW NOTES

00:10 Interview Begins
00:40 Background on Jack and Agency Agile
01:24 How Jack ended up helping Digital Agencies adopt Agile
05:10 Trying out different types of Agile
06:10 Taking a job so you can run experiments in how to manage projects
08:12 You can’t make people trust
09:13 Jack’s initial questions for management: How much pain are you in? How much gain do you want?
09:52 What is the hardest part for a Digital Agency adopting Agile?
11:52 Transforming the agency AND their clients. Training is not enough
13:40 Do we need a new flavor of Agile tailored to Digital Agencies?
17:26 Does Agile actually make things work better? Are there actual business benefits?
18:38 How does AgencyAgile “sell” Agile to companies?
21:32 We need to stop disempower team members. They care as much as we do.
24:39 Can we actually get consistent cross-functional teams in an Agency?
25:22 Designing work stream teams of 25
26:07 Transforming the whole agency at once
27:31 Are there clients who are not ready to transform yet?
31:10 Letting go of learned behavior
32:30 What do we need for Agile to work in a Digital Agency?
33:19 Agile will work  when it becomes a management initiative NOT a Project Management Initiative
34:53 How you can learn more about the AgencyAgile approach
36:10 Books about Agile that Jack recommends
37:00 Jack response to “We can’t do Agile because we’re fixed bid.”
38:10 Advice from Jack for those who want to adopt Agile in a digital agency
39:07 Where you can learn more about Jack
40:11 Interview Ends

LINKS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST

2017 Digital PM Summit: http://bureauofdigital.com/summits/digital-pm-2017/

BOOKS BY BAS VODDE AND CRAIG LARMAN

• Practices for Scaling  Lean & Agile Development http://amzn.to/2uCR6AV
• Scaling Lean & Agile Development http://amzn.to/2wXVKWG

CONTACTING JACK

Website https://www.agencyagile.com
Blog: https://www.agencyagile.com/insights/
Medium: https://medium.com/@jackskeels
Twitter : https://twitter.com/agencyagile
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackaskeels/

If you are interested in this topic, please stay tuned for more. In preparation for a session I am leading at the 2017 Digital PM Summit, I have been doing lots of interviews about how to make Agile work in a digital environment.