Speed vs. Great….Why Going Faster Isn’t The Enemy Of Getting Better

As traditional companies embrace the brave new world of behaving like a software company, the focus continues to shift on increasing the speed of delivery without sacrificing quality, with a bit of innovation/cool shit thrown in to boot.

Every team, from technology, sales, finance to marketing are embracing sticky notes around the office, still getting comfortable that standing up in meetings looking at a wall is how all the cool kids are doing it (on that note, please make more stickier sticky notes).

How do you always go faster, without ever rushing?

How do we continue to deliver better, faster, without taking shortcuts?

How do we drive more growth with the same resources?

One theory is the concept of continuous testing, which was defined in the study as: “The embedding of testing as a fundamental and ongoing aspect of every activity throughout the software delivery cycle”.

While this is common practice in many development/UX teams, it is not a practice that is widely adopted across advertising and marketing teams.

That is, to think of the initiation/ideation/versions of marketing messages as ‘software development’ and not simply rely on post campaign analysis to examine what message resonated more effectively, but to affect the output by accelerating the feedback, both internal and external, while the creative development process is underway.

That may sound at first, like more time and effort, and add more time to an already unrealistic deadline, but good communication and collaboration is key to success.

Creating a panel/team/community to provide input to the marketing development through every stage, requires marketers to let go of control, and open up the output to a broader collective. This can feel weird for a while, but the game isn’t won by owning anything anymore, but by being a part of something that works.

Enabling that process of iterative feedback/testing from a broader collective during the process (not expensive focus groups), before spending millions on the end product, can accelerate the time it takes to hit the targets required, even if the process & number of players involved expands.

The concept is not for the faint-hearted, and when we continually need to deliver more, for less, there will be casualties. Mistakes will happen. Not ever campaign will work. Eggs will be dropped. Tears will be shed.

And all that is not only OK, it should be embraced, encouraged and celebrated.