In preparing for my How to Hack Agile for Digital Agencies at the 2017 Digital PM Summit I did a lot of research and conducted a lot of interview. This conversation, with Lance Hammond and Robert Sfeir from HUGE Atlanta was the last one I did before the Summit. During this discussion Lance and Robert share many of the lessons they’ve learned in bringing Agile to HUGE and they provide clarity on what it takes to make Agile work in a Digital Agency.

SHOW NOTES

00:08 Podcast Begins
01:42 Some background on Robert and Lance
03:17 How long HUGE has been working on introducing Agile
04:40 Resistance from Design when switching to an Agile approach
06:08 Why Kanban may be a better approach for Design
07:39 How the Designers at HUGE approach their work without having all the requirements up front
09:30 Establishing Vision up front with the client and prioritizing options with them
10:33 The client needs to own the delivery from the very beginning and become part of the process
11:50 Making the client your partner in the workflow and decision making process
14:17 Why teaching the client how to work in Agile has to be an accepted cost
16:07 Why those with experience in Agile transformation can be so beneficial for Digital Agencies and what you need to watch out for
17:52 Changing how the work gets funded
20:22 How to change your Statement of Work to support Agile practices
21:47 Tips for convincing your client to want to use Agile to manage the work
24:11 Caring and feeding of the client during an Agile project at a Digital Agency
27:53 Should you include the client in the retrospective?
28:46 Do you need to have cross-functional, stable teams that are each working on only one project?
32:04 How long did it take HUGE to get to stable teams
34:02 Use Lean metrics to find and remove waste
34:20 How critical is it to move to a retainer (fund the team) model
35:30 You have to know why you want Agile, which approach you’ll take, and what you want from it
37:05 Scrum may have you thrashing for a bit before you switch to Kanban… and there is value in that
37:49 Why you need to switch the entire Digital Agency over to an Agile approach (including sales)
39:22: What is the hardest part about implementing/working with Agile in a Digital Agency
42:32 Defining what you are willing (and not willing) to try changing, when you switch to an Agile approach
44:30 How HUGE approaches estimating work
48:40 Why it is so important to watch and learn (inspect) before you start trying to change things (adapt)
50:45 Why Robert and Lance do not believe Scrum can work in a Digital Agency that wants Agile, but why you need to try it first to unlock the value of Kanban
53:00 Contacting Lance and Robert
54:06 Podcast Ends

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

HUGE
http://www.hugeinc.com/

Agile in Digital Agencies - Dave and Lance from the Atlanta Scrum User Group Meeting
https://www.pscp.tv/leadingagile/1YqxomWqrwMGv
(there is some static that persists until the interview begins at about 1 minute in)

CONTACTING LANCE
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lance5684
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lance-hammond-7288914/

CONTACTING ROBERT
Twitter: https://twitter.com/robertsfeir
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertsfeir/