An Italian financial company recently decided it wanted to send a new offer as a loyalty program. They pulled together a mailing list, cleaned it up, iterated on copy and design, and checked with legal several times to get the needed approvals. Six weeks later, they were ready to go. Too much time!

In a world where people decide to delete and email after two seconds depending on the subject, and Financial Digital Companies like N26 or Revolut help people to open a bank account in ten minutes, six weeks for an email test pushes a company to the boundaries of irrelevance.

Every day we heard how digital technology allows marketers to find innovative new ways to meet customers’ needs far more effectively. But taking advantage of the new possibilities enabled by digital requires changes to marketing organizations to become much nimbler and have a bias for action.

Agile, in the marketing context, means using creativity based on data and analytics to continuously find and realize opportunities to solve problems in real time, deploying tests quickly, evaluating the results, and rapidly iterating. Probably, a high-functioning agile marketing organization can run hundreds of campaigns simultaneously and multiple new ideas every week.

Adopting a customer-centric mind-set is just as critical in B2B and B2C dealings as it is when serving retail customers, but the Marketing team face special challenges.

How can we do that using the mind mapping?

In my courses I use the Mind Mapping technique to map all customers behaviors, thoughts and habits.

Mind Mapping is a useful technique that:

• supports learning,
• improves information recording,
• shows how different facts and ideas are related, and
• enhances creative problem solving.

Mind Maps are more compact than conventional notes, and often take up just one side of paper. This helps you to make associations and to generate new ideas. You can also add new information easily.

The use of maps as a planning and marketing strategy tool allows you to develop the best creative output to solve your customers problems and concern.

One of the values ​​of Agile Marketing is the “customer focus”. What could be better than displaying your entire marketing strategy in a format that is easy to update, edit and share? A shared mind map ensures that all team members are aware of their goals and priorities and focus their efforts on activities that drive greater growth.

Effective communication is also one of the principles of Agile Marketing.

During the course we will see this technique and you will be able to experiment it in all the steps: from brainstorming to planning to executing operational steps.

REGISTER NOW HERE!

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Since the 1980’s we have experienced a digital revolution. An age of disruption where technology is a leading factor in the survival of all businesses. Until now organisations striving for continuous improvement have benefited by investing heavily in a workforce with strong technological skills, or so called ‘hard skills’ but is this enough?

A recent article from Forbes suggests that businesses are reassessing the skills they deem critical. Mark Cuban (American Businessman and Investor) predicted that, “in ten years, a liberal arts degree in philosophy will be worth more than a traditional programming degree. As AI and automation will transform the job market so much that degrees that teach how to think in a big picture way and better collaborate will become more valuable”.

His prediction waves the flag for the softer skills. Skills that we at Radtac deem essential and a topic worth exploring. So is there merit in the latest trend towards this set of skills?  We certainly thought it was worth a conversation.

(Stuart Young – Innovation Practice Lead and Liz Howard – Head of  Culture and Talent @ Radtac)

So we got a bevvy and discussed how these skills really assist an organisation wishing to transform, innovate and deliver value faster.

– As we refreshingly slurp soda water and lime we decide to plunge deep into the topic –

Stu: Let’s begin by defining this set of skills. Unlike technical or ‘hard’ skills, ‘soft skills’ are less about knowledge and more about the behaviours you present in different situations.

Liz: Yes absolutely, most companies are focussing on behaviours as the key to transformation. Important skills, such as; Collaboration, Creativity, Emotional Intelligence (EI). EI is essential for Leaders transforming teams and organisations, which includes elements of self awareness.

Stu: No doubt you would agree that this set of skills are critical which will explain their most recent term. In an insightful article in Hackernoon, Azeem Azhar described how misleading the labelling of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills really is. Hard skills are actually the easy ones to grasp. You can wrap your head around them. “I’d propose a rebrand”, suggests Azeem, “Soft is the wrong modifier. These not-hard skills are actually the skills that we most need as individuals, at home and in the workplace. I’d go for “Power Skills”.

Liz: This title works for me. I’m guessing you would agree Mr Visualiser?

Stu: Yep it will be no surprise to those that know me that I’m a strong advocate for assisting individuals to power up their power skills, fundamentally in the form of visualisation to assist with team collaboration, communication, problem solving and idea generation. Don’t just take my word for it. In an academic study by Anneliese Tillmann ‘What We See and Why It Matters’ 2012, Anneliese shares various insights from multiple sauces on the importance of visual literacy. “When children are first introduced to literature, it is often in the form of picture books. Children learn to associate the pictures with meaning because they cannot read the words on the page (O’Neil, 2011)”. So visual thinking and creative power skills are less about the ability to pick up a sharpie and doodle but more so the ability to analyse, explore and critic visual information as well as to be effective in visual communication.

Liz: So visualisation is an effective way to gain understanding and tackle problem solving. And aids innovation right?

Stu: Absolutely. An organisation wishing to embrace an innovation mindset doesn’t need to invest in a trendy Innovation lab equipped with bean bags, ball-pits and beer fridges. It needs to foster an appetite for experimentation, ideation and fast learning. Simple visualisation/ low fidelity prototyping techniques will greatly assist a team to gain a deep rooted understanding of customer needs and test/ validate design ideas quickly and effectively. Oh and just in case our readers are not keeping up I’m still talking about power skills not hard skills.

Stu: So how do these power skills really enable a successful organisational transformation?

Liz: Transformation is all about changing the way people think and act and this can be tricky because people are complex. People are not computer programs that we can easily ‘hack’. We can bring in new systems and products but its people that implement them and use them. Its people who bring creative ideas that enable companies to compete in today’s market.

Stu: So how easy is it to change people’s behaviours, how can we bring about more creativity and innovation?

Liz: It’s not that easy at all, but it is absolutely possible. People already have the ability to change built in. We can adapt, think differently and be creative. The fundamental mistake organisations make is to assume people don’t have these abilities and we have to teach them or hire people with them. What we need to focus on is creating an environment where people can be empowered, collaborate and be creative. Many traditional organizations are not built like this though. They run on hierarchy and micro management. Transformational leaders are essential in creating an environment where people can innovate, create and feel engaged in change. Visualising strategy and using stories is a highly effective way to get people to understand and feel motivated to be part of something exciting – as you said Stu, it’s what we are introduced to from an early age.

Liz: What do you think Stu, what does a creative environment look like for you?

Stu: Everything you have eluded to Liz. From idea to innovation takes creativity and creativity is in the hands of individuals and teams. A creative environment should be an environment where visualisation is embraced throughout the fruition of a product lifecycle. During ideation sessions, retrospectives and show and tells to name a few.  Agile teams need to bake in time for innovation activities and have fun. Oh and not improve their creativity power skills on a Sunday painting class but through the courage of practicing collaborative drawing. Remember process over art, simplicity is key and communication over decoration.

Stu: So what’s the link between power skills and creating this environment?

Liz: Business Leaders have the challenge of helping people feel safe to flex their own power skills and try something new without knowing it will work. Coaching is a key power skill that can encourage self development and learning. Leaders also need to understand what their strengths and weaknesses are and be aware of blindspots that maybe holding them back, or affecting others. So we come to another power skill – Emotional Intelligence.

Stu: What exactly is Emotional intelligence and is it hard wired or learned?

Liz: Well that’s a long standing debate, the old nature nurture discussion – think we may need another soda pop! Here is my very very very abridged answer…

Roughly 3,000 articles have been published on EI (also referred to as EQ), since the concept was introduced in the 90s. Evidence shows that our level of EQ is not entirely rigid, but our ability to identify and manage our own and others’ emotions is relatively stable. What this means is that improvements will require a significant personal investment and lots of support. Power skills like coaching are essential to developing EI and many exec and leadership development programmes will incorporate this.

In Summary

• Regardless of method or practice, power skills are critical.
• Power skills can be enhanced through experiential learning and team collaboration
• Organisations should invest in people with the right skills and coach them to develop these skills.
• Creating the right culture is key to helping people power up and be creative
• Leaders will need to invest time in refining their own power skills and helping their teams do the same

At Radtac power skills play centre stage throughout each of our practice areas of Innovation, Lean Agile, Scaling and Business Agility. See our practices in video. They are also ingrained across our Training and Development, Coaching and Consulting and Teams and Practitioners services.

Why not contact Radtac today to find out how we can support you and your organisations to develop these power skills.

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A

Agile Operating Model | The holistic and simple definition of what an organisation, programme, project or team mean when they use the term ‘Agile’. This could be a single Agile framework or an integrated implementation of many frameworks, the latter being much more likely. Agile Operating Models align to the ‘Agile Manifesto’.

Agile Persona | Someone (a person or group) who will interact with the system being built, also known as a ‘user’.

B

Backlog | An ordered list of requirements/stories that the customer wants

Baseline Plan | The plan that defines the start point from which an evolving product starts, normally high level.

Best Practice | The learned best approach for something at a particular point in time, best practice evolves over time.

Business | The customers stakeholders and users of the product.

C

Command and Control | A style of management where the manager commands the team to do something and then controls them to do it. This style of management is the opposite of Agile self-organising teams.

Commitment Plan | Typically a detailed forecast for a short period of time, also known as iteration/sprint (or time-box)plans.

Cost of Delay | The cost of delaying an investment decision.

Customer | The person/people who own the product (eg. known as a ‘Product Owners’ or ‘Business Ambassadors’ in certain frameworks).

D

Definition of Done | Normally a list that defines the complete product that must be delivered; must be standard across the Team.

Definition of Ready | Normally a list that defines when artefacts within the delivery process are ready e.g. story ready to go into iteration/sprint.

E

Environment | The combination of all factors within an organisation, project, team etc that drives suitability of a delivery or governance framework. In a dynamic environment, where things change all the time, an Agile framework would be suitable.

F

Facilitated Workshops | Groups of people coming together in a forum to achieve a stated objective, the achievement of which is facilitated by a workshop facilitator. Many activities (such as planning) within Agile are delivered within Facilitated Workshops.

Feature | A feature of the system that the customer wants, normally described as a story and ordered within a backlog.

I

Iteration/Sprint | A short focussed amount of delivery effort to deliver stories within an Iteration/ Sprint goal, normally between 2 to 4 weeks.

Iteration/Sprint goal | The goal that the Team commit to in relation to an Iteration/Sprint Plan.

Iteration / Sprint plan | The forecast of what will be delivered within a short focussed ‘sprint’ by the Team.

K, N

Knowledge Based Work | Work where the main capital is knowledge, such as Doctors, Engineers and Information Technology workers.

Noise | Anything that interrupts the team within an iteration/sprint, noise causes significant disturbance within a Team and causes lack of focus on delivery and ultimately failed delivery.

R

Regression Testing | Software testing that seeks to uncover new problems, or regressions, in an existing system after changes have been made to them.

Requirements | Are described as ‘stories’ within most Agile frameworks.

S, T, U, W

Source Control System | Part of software Configuration Management, manages the central repository of code versions etc.

Stakeholder | Any person or group who can help the Team, or screw them up.

Story | A requirement or feature that may be delivered at some point; a story is a token to remind everyone that something may need to be delivered. stories reside on the backlog.

Time-box | A fixed period of time within which delivery is made, stories are prioritised within a time-box. With Agile; projects, releases and Iterations/Sprints are all time-boxes.

User | People who will use the product, known as ‘Agile Personas’ within Agile.

Working Software | Software that works, has all the elements associated with the ‘Definition of Done’ and is ready to deploy into an environment which should be the live production environment.

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