Roadmap to a more Agile Marketing Agency

Abstract

This thesis focuses on examining the work processes of the marketing agency and developing them towards agility. The business challenge for the case company is to transit to a more agile project management approach instead of the traditional waterfall method. The goal of this thesis was to explore more agile methods and prioritize customer needs to enhance project quality and customer-orientation. The thesis is used qualitative research methods to investigate the case company's work processes. Data collection methods included theme interviews and questionnaire. The research design of the thesis included five stages and three data collection rounds. The first round was the current state analysis of the company's work processes through individual interviews and questionnaire. The second round focused on the proposal building with collaboration with stakeholders. The third round came from validation of the initial proposal with the main stakeholders. The current state analysis described the case company's existing work processes and practices. Findings from the analysis helped identify areas for literature review and best practices search which leads to the building of a conceptual framework. These findings were the elements of the theoretical framework and later shaped the proposal building. The proposal was developed through several steps. Stakeholders were also engaged in planning around methods, tools, and processes, followed by co-creating the initial materials into a draft proposal. In the validation phase, feedback was incorporated to enhance the initial proposal and including elements related to training. The final proposal draft was created based on the validation results. After validation, the thesis resulted a process development roadmap and recommended tools, methods and metrics which make the case company’s current processes more agile. The business impact of this thesis is related to development proposals that will help the case company in growth and process fluency goals. This thesis includes development proposals at a general level, which will support marketing agency’s future work when implementing them in cooperation with employees.